Sunday, May 31, 2009

Vasily Grossman's Letters and Notebooks

The book A Writer At War consists of extracts from Vasily Grossman's family letters (preserved by his daughter and step-son) and notebooks (preserved in RGALI: the Russian State Archive for Literature and the Arts). Their private nature removes any doubt that they are primary sources of Grossman's true observations. They provide insurmountable problems for deniers. Here is one example.

Read more!

The letter from which this extract was taken was written to his wife whilst on the journey from Kiev to newly liberated Berdichev, where his mother was one of the Germans' victims:
Dear Lyusenka, I reached my destination today. Yesterday I was in Kiev. It's hard to express what I felt and what I suffered in the few hours when I visited the addresses of relatives and acquaintances. There are only graves and death. I am going to Berdichev today. My comrades have already been there. They said that the city is completely devastated, and only a few people, maybe a dozen out of many thousands, tens of thousands of Jews who lived there, have survived. I have no hope of finding Mama alive.
If deniers still wish to claim that Grossman's account of the genocide in Kiev and Berdichev, written at the time of their liberation, is totally false propaganda, they will have to explain this second extract, in which Grossman describes mass rapes perpetrated by his own side in Schwerin:
Horrifying things are happening to German women. An educated German whose wife has received 'new visitors' - Red Army soldiers - is explaining with expressive gestures and broken Russian words, that she has already been raped by ten men today. The lady is present...

Women's screams are heard from open windows...

A story about a breast-feeding mother who was being raped in a barn...the hungry baby was crying the whole time.
Why would Grossman lie, in his private writings, about Berdichev, about the murder of his own mother, but tell the truth about these rapes, which are damaging to the image of the Soviets?

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Belzec Mass Graves and Archaeology: My Response to Carlo Mattogno (2)

(1) - Introduction and 1. Nature and Purpose of Kola’s Archaeological Investigation

2. Location and Form of the Mass Graves[21]

In Part 2 of the original blog[22], I discussed Mattogno’s claims about contradictions regarding the location of the mass graves between the maps of Prof. Kola’s finds[23] and postwar maps of the Belzec camp area, namely the map drawn by J. Bau on hand of descriptions provided by survivor eyewitness Rudolf Reder[24] and two maps drawn by the investigative commission of the German crimes in Poland[25], and about the supposed "random" scattering of the mass graves "all over the camp" and the "oddest" shapes of some of them. I also provided digital copies of the plans and sections of all 33 mass graves from Prof. Kola’s book.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Rosewood

In 1994, the State of Florida awarded compensation to the survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre, 71 years after the event. It based its decision on this historians' report, which consisted mainly of testimonies given by perpetrators, bystanders, and survivors, and open-sourced media reports of the period.

Rosewood had many of the same features as a pogrom - lynchings, the burning down of all the residents' properties, forced evacuation, permanent loss of land rights - and the state governor turned a blind eye despite having knowledge of the event, which was largely unknown in Florida's official history until the survivors brought their case to the House of Representatives in 1994. The Special Master's Final Report concluded that there was a "moral obligation" to compensate the victims and his conclusion was shared by legislators in the House and the Senate who passed the compensation claim into law.

Readers who would like further information about the case would be strongly recommended to read Michael D'Orso's excellent book, Like Judgment Day.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Belzec Mass Graves and Archaeology: My Response to Carlo Mattogno (1)

Introduction

About three years ago I finished publishing on this blogspot a critique[1] of Carlo Mattogno’s discussion[2] of Prof. Andrzej Kola’s archaeological finds about the mass graves on the site of former Belzec extermination camp[3]. In this critique I exposed the falsehood and ill-reasoning that pervades Mattogno’s analysis, with special focus on his contentions about the technical/logistical feasibility of mass burial and cremation and the alleged incompatibility of Prof. Kola’s finds with the historical evidence whereby hundreds of thousands of Jewish deportees were murdered at Belzec[4]. I also addressed the fallacy of Mattogno’s claims about the nature and function of the Belzec camp[5].

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Is Dalton More Dishonest Than Graf?

How does Thomas Dalton's treatment of evidence compare to that of his colleagues Mattogno and Graf? Here are two examples.

Read more!

In his reply to this blog, Dalton stated that:
Evidence for the Reinhardt camps as transit camps exists, but is not plentiful. But we do not need much evidence to undermine the traditional view, in which everyone sent to those 3 camps was exterminated. In fact, just a few examples would suffice. Here are a few, as cited by Graf
So Dalton is giving us an opportunity to compare his honesty with that of Graf. The comparison can be narrowed to two examples. Firstly, Dalton makes this claim concerning the Warsaw Jews:
The vast majority of deportees from the Warsaw ghetto went to Treblinka (arguably, all the deportees), wherein they were allegedly gassed. But we have record of several thousand Jews departing Warsaw and ending up in places like Minsk (1000), Smolensk (2000), and Brzesc and Malchowicze (4000); evidently, they passed through Treblinka.
This is Graf's version of the same claim:
On July 31, 1942, the Reichskommissar of Bielorussia, Wilhelm Kube, sent a telegram to the Reichskommissar for the occupied Eastern territories, Henrich Lohse, in which he protested against the deportation of 1000 Warsaw Jews to Minsk[47]. As the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto had commenced eight days before, and as everybody agrees that at that time all Warsaw Jews were deported to Treblinka, the 1000 Jews mentioned by Kube must by necessity have been deported to Minsk via Treblinka. On August 17, 1942, the illegal Polish newspaper Informacja Biezaca reported that 2000 skilled Jewish workers had been deported from Warsaw to Smolensk on August 1[48]. On September 7, 1942, the same paper informed that two transports with 4000 persons had been sent for labour at installations important for the war effort in Brzesc and Malachowicze[49].
Graf has simply assumed that all Warsaw Jews were sent to Treblinka during that period, therefore any Warsaw Jews sent to labour camps went via Treblinka. He says that "everybody agrees" with this assumption. But of course they don't. One historian who has studied those labour camps is Christian Gerlach. He simply states that:
On 28 July another train with Warsaw Jews reached Bobruisk; a part of the Jews were sent to Smolensk. In Bobruisk the Jews also had to do work for the Wehrmacht. The return to Lublin in September 1943 only 91 men out of the 1,500 deportees lived to see, while all others had fallen victim to the constant selections, the work, the hunger and the terrible treatment.
No mention of going via Treblinka. Moreover, it would have made no sense to delouse these Jews at Treblinka because, as Gerlach also tells us:
In a similar manner in 1942 Jews from Lida and Nowogrodek came to Smolensk, and 900 Jews from Brest were sent to the East in June 1942, only twelve of them coming back.
These Soviet Jews clearly did not go to Smolensk via Treblinka yet would have been just as susceptible to carrying lice as the Polish Jews, who would in turn have been vulnerable to catching lice from these Soviet Jews when they arrived in Smolensk, thereby making their delousing at Treblinka pointless.

Comparing Graf and Dalton from this example therefore results in Graf being slightly more dishonest. Dalton says only that "The vast majority of deportees from the Warsaw ghetto went to Treblinka (arguably, all the deportees)" whereas Graf insists that "everyone agrees" they all went to Treblinka in that period. However, this difference is moot because Dalton has still misrepresented Graf's sources, which make no mention of the 7,000 Warsaw deportees in his examples going to labour camps via Treblinka.

The second example, by contrast, shows Dalton being more dishonest than Graf! Dalton claims that:
A more recent book, by survivor Julius Schelvis, recounts his deportation from Sobibor to Majdanek, and later to Auschwitz. He survived all three camps, ending up back in his native country of the Netherlands. Around 700 Dutch Jews followed a similar itinerary.
This is Graf's claim:
The author of the most detailed book about Sobibor[53], the Dutch Jew Julius Schelvis, was himself an inmate of this camp. He naturally presents Sobibor as a death factory, but his description is solely based on what he has heard from others or read in books, for he only spent a few hours at the camp. From Sobibor, he was deported to Lublin and later to Auschwitz whence he finally returned to the Netherlands. Schelvis was not an isolated case: At least 700 other Dutch Jews were moved from Sobibor to labour camps, and some of them returned home via Auschwitz – another “extermination camp” where the Germans apparently forgot to “gas” them[54].
So Dalton has inflated Graf's 'some of them returned home via Auschwitz' into 'Around 700 Dutch Jews followed a similar itinerary', a gross distortion of even Graf's claim.

Both Graf and Dalton, of course, misrepresent the fate of the Dutch Jews selected at Sobibor for forced labour camps. As I noted in this blog, Schelvis (p.191) only traced 16 survivors:
Of the approximately 700 Dutch men who, upon arrival, were immediately transferred to labour camp Dorohucza to dig peat, only two survived the war. In the rest of the Lublin district, only thirteen women and one man were liberated - though not at Dorohucza or Lublin - after spending time at numerous other camps, relentlessly torn between misery, death and hope.
Moreover, when Graf wrote his Treblinka screed with Mattogno, he suffered from a bout of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, M/G acknowledged that:
At Dorohucza, 5 km from Trawniki, was a labor camp where peat was cut. According to Schelvis, at least 700 Dutch Jews were transferred there directly after their arrival in Sobibór, but according to him only two of them are supposed to have survived the war.
On the other hand, M/G reverted to Dalton's position by stating that:
It is characteristic that nearly all the Dutch Jews, who had been transferred from Sobibór to another camp, returned home by way of Auschwitz-Birkenau; instead of being liquidated as bearers of top-secret knowledge, they survived even this 'extermination camp.'
This statement is a blatant non-sequitur in relation to the evidence they actually presented concerning the Dutch Jews.

In conclusion therefore, Graf and Dalton both emerge from this exercise as charlatans and fools.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

VHO stands for ...

… "Video Heat Online", a porn site (don’t open it if porn disgusts you).

It also stands for "Vrij Historisch Onderzoek" (which must mean something like "Free Historical Research"), "The World's largest website for Historical Revisionism!".

It's an appropriate coincidence that one finds both sites on the same page when googling for "VHO". After all, "Revisionism" is to historiography what pornography is to eroticism - and that may even be a favorable comparison.

Old Herrings in a New Can: Thomas Dalton’s Debating the Holocaust (1)

They say one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and I agree with that.

Experience also tells me that one shouldn't praise a book after reading its introduction and the first one or two chapters, for what comes later may fall short of what the beginning makes you hope for.

But does one go wrong in dismissing a book as thinly disguised propaganda, written by an author with an obvious un-confessed agenda, when its introduction and first chapter strongly point in this direction already?

Sunday, May 10, 2009

A discussion with Michael Santomauro and Thomas Dalton, Ph.D.

Almost three years after it was written, Sergey Romanov’s article Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant was graced with the comment of an illustrious "Revisionist", Michael Santomauro.

Read more!

Mr. Santomauro is the publisher of a recent "Revisionist" book with the title Debating the Holocaust. A New Look at Both Sides, by one Thomas Dalton Ph.D., who in the Introduction to his book claims to be "a scholar and academic" who has "taught humanities at a prominent American university for several years now" and wishes to take "an impartial look" at the "clash of views" regarding the series of historical events commonly known as the Holocaust, between the people I call "Revisionists" (quote marks indicating that revisionists is not what I consider them to be) and those he refers to as "traditionalists". He claims that he is "not concerned with befriending either camp", that he is "not a revisionist", and that he does not "endorse their claims". I consider this claim of impartiality to be false and have expressed my view on the book in a review on Amazon; substantiation of my assessment and further analysis will follow in future blog articles.

If I’m not mistaken (and please correct me if I’m wrong) Mr. Santomauro also is or was the man in charge of the VHO "Revisionist" website in the absence of Germar Rudolf, who is currently serving a prison sentence for Holocaust denial in Germany (my opinion about laws allowing for such sentences is expressed in, among other statements, my Petition to the German Legislator, which disappointingly received much fewer signatures than I hoped it would – may that’s still going to change).

Such distinguished "Revisionist" attention to this modest blog (Mr. Dalton professes a low opinion of blogs and online sources in general, yet some articles by Sergey and me seem to have worried him enough to merit mention in his book) would by itself have been reason enough to warrant front page mention, but things got even more interesting as Jonathan Harrison and I responded to Mr. Santomauro’s comment about Sergey’s blog, whereupon Mr. Santomauro transmitted a answer from Thomas Dalton himself, to which I have in turn responded.

As said in a P.S. to my last response, I consider this conversation with Messrs. Dalton and Santomauro to be sufficiently interesting to our readers to deserve a blog of its own, rather than be confined to the comments section of another blog. Therefore I shall hereinafter copy the posts of Michael Santomauro, Jonathan Harrison, Thomas Dalton and myself under Sergey’s aforementioned article.

Michael Santomauro, Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:11:00 AM

In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

“The [diesel engine] topic is almost completely avoided by every anti-revisionist writer. […] This is a strong implicit admission that traditionalism has no reply to Berg and the revisionists. [...] Most recently the bloggers have attempted to address this issue. After admitting that ‘it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings… when one has acess to petrol engines’, Romanov20 claims that the diesel issue is ‘irrelevant’ because, in his view, anyone who claimed that the gassing engine was a diesel was simply mistaken. He argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!”21

Let me add that the argument of the ridiculous blogger S. Romanov (“The diesel issue is irrelevant”) reveals the queer mindset of this individual: There is neither documentary nor material evidence for the “Aktion Reinhardt” holocaust, and there are no trustworthy witnesses either (for what credit can be given to witnesses who “were simply mistaken” as the murder weapon?), but nonetheless the Aktion Reinhardt holocaust is a proven and indisputable fact! In other words: The pillars on which the edifice once rested are gone, but the edifice is still standing, or rather hovering in the air! A major miracle!


Jonathan Harrison, Friday, May 08, 2009 9:46:00 PM

Mr Santomauro, you quote Dalton as follows:

"[Romanov] argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two"

This is a lie. As can clearly be seen in the above blog, Sergey also cites gasoline testimonies by Bauer, Hödl, Levinbuck, Burmeister, Piller and Jeckeln.

If this crude dishonesty is typical of Dalton's book, you won't be fooling anybody.


Roberto Muehlenkamp, Friday, May 08, 2009 10:43:00 PM, quotes in italics

Hi Mr. Santomauro,

You wrote:

«In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

“The [diesel engine] topic is almost completely avoided by every anti-revisionist writer. […] This is a strong implicit admission that traditionalism has no reply to Berg and the revisionists. [...] Most recently the bloggers have attempted to address this issue. After admitting that ‘it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings… when one has acess to petrol engines’, Romanov20 claims that the diesel issue is ‘irrelevant’ because, in his view, anyone who claimed that the gassing engine was a diesel was simply mistaken. He argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!”21»
If Mr. Dalton wrote this, he has either not read Sergey Romanov's article or not understood it. Or then he is simply a liar.

First, the claim that Sergey can "cite only two" eyewitnesses: Actually Sergey also mentions Erich Bauer and Franz Hödl for Sobibor, Levinbuck and Jeckeln for Einsatzgruppen gas vans, Burmeister and Piller for gas vans at Chelmno. And he could furthermore have mentioned, from among the witnesses referred to by Peter Witte, "the Polish electrician Kasimierz Czerniak, who helped to establishing the motor room [at Belzec] in 1942; he described a petrol motor of approximately 200 or more PS, from which exhaust fumes were led away over ground pipes (18 Nov 1945). Confusion with a diesel engine is out of the question because diesel fuel is called olej napedowy in Polish" , as well as some further witnesses listed in my collection of Testimonies about Engines used for Homicidal Gassing. Looking at that collection, it is easy to identify the following pattern:
1. Most eyewitnesses said nothing about the type of engine.
2. Those eyewitnesses who either operated the engine or were otherwise familiar with it, the people "in the know", spoke of a gasoline engine.
3. Some casual eyewitnesses, who neither operated the engine nor were otherwise familiar with it, mentioned a diesel engine (though there are also two Treblinka eyewitnesses, Oskar Strawczynski and Ivan Shevchenko, who mentioned a gasoline engine).
So the preponderance of testimony mentioning the type of engine, and especially of knowledgeable testimony, is clearly on diesel and not gasoline.

Second, if Mr. Dalton calls Sergey's statement «It also seems to me that it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings, even if they can kill, when one has access to petrol engines.» an admission of something, he is misrepresenting said statement on that account alone, apart from having conveniently omitted the "even if they can kill" part. For Sergey is not admitting anything, only reasoning that there would have been no point in using diesel engines when gasoline engines were available, and that this speaks for the use of gasoline rather than diesel engines.

I hope that Mr. Dalton at least provides a link to Sergey's article in his book, so that readers can check behind him and see how he misrepresented the source he is criticizing.

Now to your own additions:

«Let me add that the argument of the ridiculous blogger S. Romanov (“The diesel issue is irrelevant”) reveals the queer mindset of this individual: Letting fly with ad hominems in your very first post on this blog already, Mr. Santomauro? We must have badly rattled your cage, then, especially Sergey. I think you owe him an apology for these uncalled-for insults.

«There is neither documentary nor material evidence for the “Aktion Reinhardt” holocaust, If that is your conviction, you haven't been doing your homework, Mr. Santomauro. Should you be interested in doing something about your ignorance, I can point you to some articles on this blog and elsewhere in which documentary and/or "material" (I guess you mean "physical") evidence to the Aktion Reinhard(t) killings are discussed.

and there are no trustworthy witnesses either (for what credit can be given to witnesses who “were simply mistaken” as the murder weapon?)

Apart from the fact that a number of eyewitnesses mentioned gasoline engines, your remark is as false a false dilemma as I have ever seen. For it's not like the eyewitnesses who spoke of diesel engines were hanging around the gas chamber building all the time watching the people getting killed. None of them necessarily saw much of the gassing process let alone the gassing engine, and as there were also diesel engines for other purposes in both camps and the witnesses were not exactly trained mechanics, they can be forgiven for having confounded the gassing engine with another engine used for another purpose, especially if that engine was standing in the same engine room (the witnesses' lack of technical knowledge, by the way, is also the reason why it is stupid to make a fuss about their having not understood correctly how the gassing process worked, like when Mr. Dalton mocks Reder in your above quote). This does not in any way affect the credibility of the respective witness in other respects, especially insofar as there is corroboration by other testimonies independent of that witness's testimony. Your reasoning is simply fallacious, Mr. Santomauro.

, but nonetheless the Aktion Reinhardt holocaust is a proven and indisputable fact! In other words: The pillars on which the edifice once rested are gone, but the edifice is still standing, or rather hovering in the air! A major miracle! That's just hollow rhetoric, my dear Sir. It may impress fellow "Revisionists", but outside "Revisionist" cloud-cuckoo-land it just looks foolish.

Now, if you want to discuss Mr. Dalton's book with me and my fellow bloggers (Mr. Dalton, needless to say, is also cordially invited), I hereby kindly ask you to send me an MS Word file PDF copy of Mr. Dalton's book free of charge to my e-mail address, which you find under my profile. You see, I don't feel like paying the prohibitively high sum of $ 35 for such a book, also considering who I would be thereby financing, and it may still be a while before the book is available for free download on the VHO website. You shouldn't have a problem in sending me what you want to discuss with me and my fellow bloggers, unless of course you are aware that it is as full of holes as the sample you quoted suggests.

Best regards, also to Mr. Dalton,

Roberto Muehlenkamp


Michael Santomauro, Sunday, May 10, 2009 1:35:00 AM

Reply to Muehlenkamp, from Thomas Dalton:

Regarding the excerpt from my book, "Debating the Holocaust", Muehlenkamp is being disingenuous at best. First, the context is obviously relevant. The quote (p. 111 of my book) is from a chapter on the Reinhardt camps, and so witnesses for gas vans (Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller) are irrelevant here.

Second, the mere mention of a name, or of a claim, by Romanov is valueless unless it is substantiated. Reference to Bauer and Hoedl comes from "German historian Peter Witte", who apparently is an amateur. We have no information on the source of the quote, other than from deathcamps.org, which likewise contains the unsourced quotation. (The authors of this web site are also unknown, incidentally.) Witte says that Bauer, Fuchs, and Hoedl "confirmed in court" that the engines were gasoline, but there is no reference to an original source, nor even a quotation. Furthermore, Romanov confuses the reader by not making clear that when Witte says "In this case...", he means, the case of Sobibor.

So, I think I can hardly be faulted for avoiding reference to Bauer and Hoedl, the only two further names vaguely applicable here. (Should someone find the original court transcripts, I will be happy to revise my text accordingly.)

Furthermore, the quote from my book continues: "Romanov ignores the entire producer-gas argument, which is much more effective even than gasoline. He ignores as well the 'blue corpse' claims, which argue against any CO poisoning scheme. [CO-gassed corpses would be red or pink, not blue.] ... Finally, if the case for gasoline is so compelling, why don't we hear this from the leading Holocaust researchers? Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem, USHMM et al have continued to speak of diesel engines." Lots of unanswered questions here.

And yes, I do indeed reference Romanov's web article in the bibliography, along with 2 of Muehlenkamp's. (He would know this if he actually read the book.)

Finally, I highly doubt that my book is "full of holes", but there may well be room for correction and improvement, and I am more than willing to do so. Unlike many in this debate, I am happy to present the best arguments on all sides. Let the best argument win.

TD.


Roberto Muehlenkamp, Sunday, May 10, 2009 2:44:00 PM (quotes in italics)

Reply to Muehlenkamp, from Thomas Dalton: I wonder why Thomas Dalton doesn’t come here himself to discuss his writings but sends a message through his publisher.

I hope the messenger doesn’t mind if I nevertheless address the author directly in the following.
(Well, I frankly couldn't care less if he does.)

Regarding the excerpt from my book, "Debating the Holocaust", Muehlenkamp is being disingenuous at best. First, the context is obviously relevant. The quote (p. 111 of my book) is from a chapter on the Reinhardt camps, and so witnesses for gas vans (Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller) are irrelevant here. Sorry, Mr. Dalton, but I haven't read your book and don't intend to unless you or your publisher send it to me free of charge or it is made available for free download on a "Revisionist" website. That is why I only had your publisher's quote to go by, which in turn means that your accusation of my being disingenuous is inappropriate. If you think the context vindicates your statement, you should complain to your publisher for having quoted you out of context, instead of accusing me of having been disingenuous.

As to testimonies from mobile gas van operations and from Chelmno extermination camp being irrelevant in a discussion of gassing procedures at the Aktion Reinhardt camps, please allow me to take exception to this position of yours. For if the Nazis used gasoline engines in mobile gas van operations and at Chelmno, from which the fixed gas chambers of the Aktion Reinhardt camps were derived, there is no reason why they should have changed the procedure and the type of engine used for gassing, apart from there being evidence from Belzec, Sobibor and even Treblinka that they did not. So no, the argument that testimonies about the type of gassing engine used outside the Aktion Reinhardt camps are irrelevant to the latter is fallacious. And the very least thing you should have done is to state in your book that and why you consider the testimonies of Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller irrelevant to determining the type of engine used at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. But you simply ignored those testimonies. That, Mr. Dalton, is what I would call disingenuous behavior.

Second, the mere mention of a name, or of a claim, by Romanov is valueless unless it is substantiated. Aha. And how does he fail to substantiate it?

Reference to Bauer and Hoedl comes from "German historian Peter Witte", who apparently is an amateur. Who told you so? I have seen references to several academic publications by Peter Witte, alone or together with renowned historians like Dieter Pohl from the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (who I hope you have mentioned in your book, for having failed to do so wouldn’t bode well for the scholarship you apparently claim), so I presume he is a professional historian. He is the co-author, together with Stephen Tyas (who I also hope you haven't failed to mention), of the article "A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during 'Einsatz Reinhard(t)'", Holocaust and Genocide Studies, V15 N3, Winter 2001, pp. 468-486, which I hope for you that you have discussed in your book, for omission of this essential source would be a devastating verdict against the scholarship you apparently claim. From footnote 15 to that article we learn that Witte is also the co-author of a critique to Robin O’Neill’s "reassessment" of the number of victims of Belzec extermination camp (Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte, "The Number of Victims of Belzec Extermination Camp. A Faulty Reassessment," EEJA 31 1 [2001] p. 19). According to footnote 42 of the same article, Witte is furthermore the co-author, together with Michael Wildt, Martina Voigt, Dieter Pohl, Peter Klein, Christian Gerlach, Christoph Diekmann and Andrej Angrick (I hope for you that you have at least mentioned Pohl, Gerlach and Angrick, all three authors of important studies about Nazi occupation and genocide policies), of an analysis of Heinrich Himmler's appointments calendar: Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg Christians, 1999), pp 233-34. So it seems that we are talking about someone who is not only a professional historian, but also one that has thoroughly researched aspects pertaining to the subject matter of this discussion. Calling such a person an "amateur" suggests at best the ignorance of someone who hasn’t done his homework.

And as we’re at it, please explain what exactly you mean by the word "amateur" in this context, what your definition is based on, why "Revisionist" writers like Germar Rudolf, Friedrich Paul Berg, Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno would not qualify as "amateurs" in the light of this definition and how you see yourself according to the same. What are you, Mr. Dalton?

Ah, and on this occasion you might also tell us where you got that Ph.D. you seem to be so proud of that you even parade it on the cover of your book, and at what "prominent American university" you have "taught humanities", as you claim in the Introduction of your book. I’m definitely curious, Mr. Dalton. I want to know who you are to call whosoever (and especially someone like Peter Witte) an "amateur".

We have no information on the source of the quote, other than from deathcamps.org, which likewise contains the unsourced quotation.

(The authors of this web site are also unknown, incidentally.) The authors are known to me and include researchers of note, but that’s beside the point here. Proceed.

Witte says that Bauer, Fuchs, and Hoedl "confirmed in court" that the engines were gasoline, but there is no reference to an original source, nor even a quotation.

That may be so and is obviously related to the nature of the medium, but I submit that Peter Witte is enough of an authority on the matter for his writings to deserve consideration even without a "reference to an original source".

Furthermore, Romanov confuses the reader by not making clear that when Witte says "In this case...", he means, the case of Sobibor. To the extent that it matters which of the camps is being referred to, readers who haven’t inferred that from Sergey’s previous reference to Fuchs and the mention of Fuchs in the quote from Witte’s article only need to follow the link provided in Sergey’s article to discover that Sobibor is being referred to. You don’t seem very confident of your argument to include such a feeble objection therein.

So, I think I can hardly be faulted for avoiding reference to Bauer and Hoedl, the only two further names vaguely applicable here.

The very least you should have done, Mr. Dalton, is to point out that Sergey mentions further witnesses besides Fuchs and Reder but you are not satisfied with the substantiation of these mentions and therefore didn't take them into consideration. But your claiming that "he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!" leaves any reader who doesn’t bother to check your footnotes (and many people don’t do that) with the impression that Sergey based his theory on the testimonies of only two witnesses, one of whom you furthermore deride as dubious. That impression is clearly wrong, and your statement thus misleading.

(Should someone find the original court transcripts, I will be happy to revise my text accordingly.)

That should be possible, but your calling for primary sources raises two important questions:

First, according to what rules or standards of historiography do you proclaim that only primary sources, but no however reputable secondary sources, will satisfy you?

Second, do you live up to such standards yourself in your book? Are all your claims of fact supported by primary sources, or at least by reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source?

As you may understand, proclaiming standards that you don't comply with yourself is not exactly an honest researcher's behavior.

Furthermore, the quote from my book continues: "Romanov ignores the entire producer-gas argument, which is much more effective even than gasoline. He ignores as well the 'blue corpse' claims, which argue against any CO poisoning scheme. [CO-gassed corpses would be red or pink, not blue.] … Well, there we may have a case in point for my above questions. Given that you are so demanding as concerns sources, I would expect you to have relied on primary sources, or on reputable secondary sources, for your claim that producer-gas (which I've learned had some significant safety inconveniences from the user’s point of view, apart from the possibility of using producer gas being a moot issue where all evidence points to the use of engine exhaust, independently of that being or not the "best" solution) would have been "much more effective" than gasoline exhaust. I would also expect you to have a sufficiently large data base (not just one or two eyewitness testimonies) to support your apparent claim that the corpses were generally described as "blue", and that this data-base is derived from either primary sources or reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source. And I would expect a solid demonstration, again based on primary sources or reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source, whereby a) death from carbon monoxide poisoning always leads to "pink" discoloration and an alternative or concomitant "blue" discoloration must be ruled out and b) suffocation must be excluded as an alternative or concomitant cause of death in the gas chambers of the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.

If you cannot demonstrate that you live up to the standards you expect critics of "Revisionism" to live up to, your hand-waving remarks about Sergey’s article must be considered hypocritical at best.

Finally, if the case for gasoline is so compelling, why don't we hear this from the leading Holocaust researchers? Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem, USHMM et al have continued to speak of diesel engines."

Let’s assume that the people you mentioned have continued to "speak of diesel engines"; I haven’t checked. What conclusions should one reasonably derive from this, other than their being either unaware of or indifferent to what "Revisionists" consider such a big problem? I wouldn’t blame historians for considering the detail of what type of engines were used a minor issue, for with all known evidence from different sources and of different categories pointing to mass murder, and no evidence whatsoever pointing to an alternative scenario, the alleged impracticability or inconveniency of using diesel exhaust for gassing would at worst mean that the eyewitnesses on whose testimonies this notion was based were mistaken about the nature and mechanics of the killing method or at least about the type of engine used. If diesel engines are out of the question, then they must have used something else, and as an engine figures in the related testimonies of all former SS supervisors, guards and inmates that I have read, that "something else" can only have been a gasoline engine. The whole issue is no big deal, Mr. Dalton. It takes the small, illogical minds of "Revisionist" hagglers to make a big deal out of it.

As to who you call the "leading Holocaust researchers", why am I missing such important names as Christopher Browning, Dieter Pohl, Peter Longerich, Christian Gerlach and Bogdan Musial in that list? Most of what I know about the Holocaust comes from these and other also unmentioned sources rather than from Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem and the USHMM. Could it be that your list of "leading Holocaust researchers" is a little, err, outdated?

Lots of unanswered questions here.

I can think of only one at this moment: Why do "Revisionists" make such a big deal about what is at worst an understandable observation and recollection mistake by casual eyewitnesses? Why don't they focus their attention and efforts on what could really help against their theses being looked upon as the ramblings of a lunatic fringe of ideologically motivated fanatics, which in the context of the Aktion Reinhardt camps would be producing evidence (evidence one can reasonably expect to be plentiful) whereby these camps were actually not extermination camps but what "Revisionists" claim them to have been, i.e. "transit camps" for Jews being resettled to the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union?

That's another question I would especially like you to answer, Mr. Dalton.

And yes, I do indeed reference Romanov's web article in the bibliography, along with 2 of Muehlenkamp's. (He would know this if he actually read the book.) So the reader has to look up the bibliography to find a link to Sergey’s article and 2 of mine (which of them, by the way, and why only these two?), or how am I supposed to understand the above remark?

As to my reading the book, I have already told your publisher what my position in this respect is: I do not intend to spend what I consider a prohibitively high sum for what my impressions so far show to be propagandistic nonsense, also considering that I would thereby finance an avowedly "Revisionist" publisher, and that I expect this book to be eventually available for free download on a "Revisionist" website like many of its predecessors. However, I’ll be glad to not only read but also analyze and dissect the book if you or your publisher were to send a word file or PDF copy thereof to my e-mail address, which is cortagravatas@yahoo.com . As an obvious critic of the book and someone who is referred to therein (presumably in the same unfavorable hand-waving manner as Sergey Romanov), I consider myself entitled to a free copy. And if you and your publisher are as confident of the quality of the book as you claim you are, you should have no problem whatsoever in making such copy available to me.

Finally, I highly doubt that my book is "full of holes", but there may well be room for correction and improvement, and I am more than willing to do so. Fine, then please send me your book free of charge so I can tell you what "correction and improvement" you should introduce. From what I have seen so far I expect the list to be a long one.

Unlike many in this debate, I am happy to present the best arguments on all sides. Let the best argument win. Having read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of your book, Mr. Dalton, I have to tell you that I consider you claim of impartiality to be false. As I shall further detail in future blog articles, the parts of your book you have made available online are sufficient to recognize a thinly disguised eulogy of "Revisionism" and putting down of what you call the "traditionalist" record of events, and an attempt to sell old "Revisionist" herrings and straw-men in a new package.

I don't know who you think you're fooling, Mr. Dalton, but you're certainly not fooling me.

I’m looking forward to your answering my above questions, and to finding that free copy of your book in my mailbox.

Best regards, also to your publisher,

Roberto Muehlenkamp


Roberto Muehlenkamp, Sunday, May 10, 2009 2:48:00 PM

P.S.

I consider this conversation with Messrs. Dalton and Santomauro to be sufficiently interesting to our readers to deserve a blog of its own, rather than be confined to the comments section of another blog.

I shall therefore open such blog and request the above mentioned and whoever else would like to comment to post their comments under that new blog.


The discussion should continue in the comments section of the present blog article. I especially expect replies from Mr. Santomauro and/or Mr. Dalton (and it would be good if the latter appeared here in person instead of sending messages through his publisher), but every reader is invited to join in as well.

I look forward to a lively and instructive debate.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Grubach Lies About Death Camp Testimonies

In two recent articles, Holocaust denier Paul Grubach systematically misrepresents testimony concerning the death camps by treating hearsay witnesses, discussing phenomena such as 'electrocution chambers' and 'chlorine gassing', as 'eyewitnesses'. He then uses this misrepresentation to attack historians, such as Browning and Arad, for not taking these 'eyewitness' accounts as seriously as the eyewitnesses who described gassing by vehicle exhaust.

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In his attack on Browning, Grubach claims that:
There are "eyewitnesses" who claimed that Jews were murdered en masse in "electrocution chambers" at Belzec, and not with the use of "gas chambers."
However, the only 'eyewitness' that Grubach discusses was never even present at Belzec:
In February 1944, the New York Times published a false eyewitness report of "electrocution chambers" at Belzec. Here is what is stated: "A young Polish Jew who escaped from a mass execution in Poland with the aid of false identification papers repeated today a story that the Germans operated an 'execution factory' in old Russian fortifications in eastern Poland. The Jews were forced naked onto a metal platform operated as a hydraulic elevator which lowered them into a huge vat filled with water up the victims' necks, he said. They were electrocuted by current through the water. The elevator then lifted the bodies to a crematorium above, the youth said."

The article concludes: "The youth said he personally had seen trainloads of Jews leave Rawna Luska in eastern Poland in the morning for the crematorium at near-by Beljec [sic] and return empty in the evening. He was told the rest of the story, he said, by individuals who escaped after actually being taken inside the factory. The fortifications, he added, were built by the Russians after they occupied eastern Poland." [my emphasis - JH]
The youth in Grubach's account only witnessed a deportation. His account of 'electrocution chambers' is pure hearsay. We are not even told the names or roles of the individuals from whom the youth heard the story. Grubach, incredibly, asserts that Browning should have given this hearsay account more credibility than the accounts of German perpetrators:
The reader should ask himself why Browning ignored mentioning these "electrocution chamber" reports in his books and essays. If the "evidence" that "proves" that Jews were electrocuted en masse is bogus, isn't it also possible that the "evidence" that "proves" that Jews were murdered in "gas chambers" is also bogus, or at least very suspect?

Indeed, it could be argued that the false "eyewitnesses" to the "electrocution chambers" are more "credible" than Browning's "eyewitnesses" to the "carbon monoxide chambers." Browning himself wrote: "Historians almost invariably prefer contemporary documents to after-the-fact testimony." 29

After all, the "eyewitnesses" to the "electrocution chambers" were contemporary "observers" of the bogus "electrocution chambers." They were not prisoners in a 1960s, years- after-the-fact trial who-for legal/tactical reasons-were coerced into giving testimony claiming they witnessed gas chambers.
Grubach does the same in his attack on the Sobibor historiography. He starts again by falsely presenting hearsay as an eyewitness account of gassing:
Sobibor eyewitness Hella Fellenbaum-Weiss told the story of how Jews on their way to Sobibor were gassed with chlorine. We let her pick up her story here: "The arrival of another convoy distressed me in the same way. It was thought to come from Lvov, but nobody knows for sure. Prisoners were sobbing and told us a dreadful tale: they had been gassed on the way with chlorine, but some survived. The bodies of the dead were green and their skin peeled off."
This is a hearsay account of a gassing that did not even occur at Sobibor itself, yet Grubach claims that Arad should have given it the same credibility as the account of Fuchs, who actually installed the gasoline engine at Sobibor:
So, once again, here we have another problem. The official story coming from Raul Hilberg asserts that a diesel engine supplied the deadly gas used to commit mass murder. Nevertheless, Holocaust expert Arad cites the testimony of a German official who claimed that a benzene engine was used. Yet, other Sobibor "eyewitnesses" say the murder weapon was chlorine, not diesel or benzene engine exhaust. The chlorine gas story has clearly been quietly abandoned and the "engine exhaust" story is now the "official truth." But did the Germans use a diesel or benzene engine?
Grubach then, unbelievably, asserts:
At this point the hardcore believer in the Sobibor gas chambers should ask himself this question: if the story of Jews being gassed with chlorine at Sobibor is false, isn't it also possible that the story of Jews being gassed with some type of engine exhaust is also untrue?
The only thing that any sane person reading Grubach's bullshit will be asking is: why has this imbecile insulted my intelligence by assuming I cannot tell the difference between a hearsay testimony about killing methods and a genuine eyewitness account of the murder weapon?

Friday, May 01, 2009

From Destruction through Labour to Destruction of Labour

This phrase comes from Browning, p.87, and describes a transition that can be encapsulated in two extracts. The first comes from Oswald Pohl and describes the labour policy that existed as of April 1942 in the General Government:

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The commander of camp alone is responsible for the employment of the workers. This work input must be exhaustive in the true sense of the word, in order to obtain a maximum of achievement. [...] The work time is bound to no borders. [...] Time-consuming advances and lunch time only for meal purposes are forbidden. [IMT: The process, volume XXXVIII, page 366/Doku. 129-R].
The second comes from the diary of Hans Frank, is dated 9 December 1942, and describes the dilemma that Frank faced after Himmler had intervened to exterminate his essential Jewish workers:
In our time-tested Jews we have had a not insignificant source of labour manpower taken from us. It is clear that the process of mobilizing labour is rendered more difficult when in the midst of this wartime labour program the order comes that all Jews are to be left to their destruction [cited, Browning, p.79].