Friday, June 23, 2006

Videos, a must see!

So yelled "Revisionist" true believer "neugierig" on a RODOH thread. And his brother-in-spirit "ClaudiaRothenbach" dutifully provided the link to this multi-episode video film and praised it in the highest tones, claiming that it "plucks apart the standard fairy tale books of Hilberg and Arad about the H-Cheese or the Reinhardt-Camps" ("Der Film zerpflückt die Standard-Märchenbücher von Hilberg und Arad über den H-Käse bzw. die Reinhardt-Camps", see "ClaudiaRothenbach"’s post # 2402).

So I had a look at Episode 11: Treblinka Burial Space [YouTube version] of this video, where it is supposedly proven that there was not enough space available in the mass graves of Treblinka extermination camp to bury ca. 700,000 or more dead bodies. What I found was nothing to write home about.

Believe it or not, the "Revisionist" creator of this video episode assumes that no more than 3 corpses per cubic meter could fit into the mass graves of the "Aktion Reinhard(t)" camps (470,304 cubic meters for 1.38 million corpses in the three camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka or 11.250 cubic meters for 33,010 corpses in an average mass grave of Treblinka, as described by witnesses). The underlying calculations are based on a presumably deliberate misunderstanding of the following description on page 112 of Yitzhak Arad’s book Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps:

This group of several dozen men worked at the burial ditches. After the victims' bodies were thrown into a pit by the body-transport workers, the corpses were arranged in rows by the burial detail. To save space, the bodies were arranged head to foot; each head lay between the feet of two other corpses, and each pair of feet between two heads. Sand or chlorine was scattered between the layers of bodies. Approximately half the team worked inside the ditches arranging the corpses at the same time that the other half was covering a layer of bodies with sand. When a ditch filled up, it was topped off with earth and a new ditch was opened.


Arad obviously refers to a head-to-foot arrangement of the bodies in the sense that the head of the second body was placed next to the feet of the first one, the feet of the third body were placed next to the head of the second body, the head of the fourth body was placed next to the feet of the third body, and so on. For only thus would the arrangement lead to saving space, which Arad states to have been the purpose, by creating a partial overlap between the widths of the bodies and avoiding empty lateral spaces in between them. What the "Revisionist" video genius made of this, on the other hand, cannot be called a head-to-foot arrangement; it rather looks like a human pyramid formed by athletes at a sporting event standing on each other’s shoulders. Neither does it save space, for whatever space is gained by partially overlapping one body’s head with the lower limbs and feet of the bodies next to it is lost by enlarging the empty lateral spaces between the bodies in relation to what they would be if the bodies were simply placed shoulder to shoulder. It may even be argued that this arrangement wastes space rather than saving any.

After thus misrepresenting the arrangement of the bodies described by Arad, the genius calculates length, width and height – making allowance for the aforementioned overlap between one body’s head and the adjacent bodies’ lower limbs and feet – as if the bodies were encased in a virtual box the measurements of which correspond to their length minus head, their width at the widest body part (the shoulders) and their height at the highest body part (the chest). This calculation, of course, assumes a lot of empty space, particularly around the legs and neck, as if the body were in a tightly-fitting coffin. Given that these empty spaces were minimized or avoided altogether by the horizontal arrangement described by Arad, as well as a presumably similar head to foot – arrangement in the vertical, including them in the measurements unduly increases the calculated volume of space occupied by a body.

The measurements thus obtained are: 50 inches or 1.27 meters for length, 26 inches or 0.6604 meters for width and 9 inches or 0.2286 meters for height. The shoulder width considered, 26 inches or 0.6604 cm, seems to be somewhat generous, to say the least. 26 inches, according to R&D Ergonomics, is the threshold to very wide shoulders. The largest shoulder width for football shoulder pads available at Dick’s Sporting Goods is 23 – 24 inches or 0.5842 to 0.6096 meters. It seems rather implausible that even the adult males among the Jews deported to Treblinka, after years of ghetto hunger and hardship, had anything like what is apparently considered a large shoulder width for well-fed American adult males.

Multiplying these values leads to a volume of 0.1917 cubic meters, which would mean a density of about 5 bodies per cubic meter (5.2157). This apparently is still too much for the genius, so he adds a layer of sand or chlorine no less than 7 inches or 17.78 cm thick supposedly placed over each layer of bodies. This addition is arbitrary and in contradiction with Arad’s description, which speaks of some sand or chlorine being scattered between the layers of bodies. By converting what seems to have been a negligibly thick amount of sand or chlorine scattered over the bodies into a layer 17.78 cm thick, in addition to his previous manipulations, the genius then arrives at the ridiculously high volume-per-body and correspondingly low density of bodies in the grave that he expects his gullible readers to swallow: 0.3408 cubic meters occupied by one body plus the sand or chlorine topping it and roughly 3 (2.9338) bodies per cubic meter.

The fallacies of this showpiece of "Revisionist" science thus exposed, let’s now have a look at what the actual density of corpses in the Treblinka mass graves can be expected to have been, considering that

i) the bodies were arranged in the space-saving manner described above, and not like what the video genius made out of Arad’s description, and

ii) the bodies were mostly those of women and children or elderly men, who unlike young adult males were of little or no use as forced laborers and therefore the first the Nazis wanted to get rid of.

"Revisionist" guru Carlo Mattogno, see the quote in Section 4.1 of my article Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research, writes that

On the basis of experimental data, the maximum capacity of a mass grave can be set at 8 corpses per cubic meter, assuming that one third of them are children.


According to the calculations of Alex Bay, the volume displacement of the "ideal man" is 3.3 cubic feet, which equals 0.093445594 cubic meters. This would mean a density of ca. 11 bodies (10.7014) per cubic meter.

Regarding a "population" of the Belzec gas chambers that consisted mostly of children, Charles Provan experimentally proved that 703 people could fit into a room with 5 x 5 x 1.9 = 47.5 cubic meters, which corresponds to a density of ca. 15 persons (14.8) per cubic meter.

As was to be expected, the "Revisionist" genius furthermore based his claim of an insufficient grave volume at Treblinka on drawings or models of the camp, which even where scaled do not necessarily show all parts and objects of the camp presented therein true to their actual relative sizes and distances (the drawings or models rely heavily on eyewitness recollections, which apart from the general problems of this source of evidence when it comes to measurements, quantities and distances are affected by difficulties particular to the Treblinka camp that are referred to on the Aktion Reinhard Camps site). So it seems more appropriate, in order to determine the size of the graves area and the presumable size of the graves, to rely on the only measurements by a land surveyor that, to my knowledge, have so far been carried out in regard to Treblinka. These were mentioned by the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland in their 1946 report on Treblinka. In the English translation of this report , the following is stated:

The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.

Additional facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evidence of 11 Polish railway workers.

The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.

[…]

There are also other traces. For example, in the north-eastern part, over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),

p.97

there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues.

As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones. The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable, growing stronger as one approaches.


If we assume that the area covered with "large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones" was the area of the mass graves, which seems a reasonable thing to do, then the size of this area was 2 ha or 20,000 square meters. If on this area there were ten graves with the measurements 50 x 25 x 10 meters, or a smaller number of larger graves covering an equivalent area, there were still 7,500 square meters left to enable movement in between the graves. Assuming 9 meters depth available for burial, as the video’s creator does, this would mean that 12,500 x 9 = 112,500 cubic meters of grave space were available, and assuming an average density of 8 corpses per cubic meter – which considering Alex Bay's calculations and Provan’s experiment seems a rather conservative estimate – this space would be enough to bury 112,500 x 8 = 900,000 corpses. This order of magnitude is in line with the statements of defendant Franz Suchomel at the first Treblinka trial, who is referred to in the judgment as having recalled that, according to his comrade Pötzinger, one alone of the mass graves opened in the spring of 1943 had about 80,000 dead bodies in it. It is also in line with the documentary and demographic evidence to the deportations to Treblinka, which includes but is not limited to the report sent by SS-Sturmbannführer Höfle in Lublin on 11 January 1943 to Obersturmbannführer Heim in Krakow, according to which 713,555 people had been delivered at Treblinka on 31.12.1942 already. There is no evidence that these people, or any that followed, were ever taken anywhere further, and no more than a few dozen survivors from among these deportees ever showed up.

So what is this video episode, which supposedly proves that there was not enough burial space for 700,000 corpses at Treblinka? What I expected it to be: more of the beaten old "Revisionist" hoaxing in a new package, with nice computer pictures and models to mask its fallacies and impress a public of gullible true believers. Of the other episodes I expect nothing better.

A few words about Episode 12: Belzec Burial Space [YouTube version], which is based on Episode 11: Treblinka Burial Space: the archaeological investigation led by Prof. Andrzej Kola on the area of Belzec between 1997 and 1999, during which 33 mass graves with a total volume of ca. 21,000 cubic meters were identified, is not even mentioned in that episode, where instead a fuss is made about a drawing of Belzec extermination camp in Yitzhak Arad’s book about the camps of "Aktion Reinhard(t)", which states no scale, makes no pretension to be an accurate representation of the relative sizes and distances of the objects in the camp, and is overruled by the results of Kola’s investigation in what concerns the depiction of the mass graves. Why the grave volume established by Prof. Kola was sufficient, considering the circumstances present at Belzec, to bury the corpses of the 434,508 deportees to that camp mentioned in Höfle’s report to Heim of 11 January 1943, is explained in Section 4.1 of my article Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research .


Click here to read refutations of other Ugly Voice Productions videoclips.

25 comments:

  1. The filmmaker merely analyzed the Holocaust claims from a few major storytellers--and now it doesn't require Hollywood producers to make propaganda films. A guy can do it with a computer and a camera phone.

    Anyhow, Krege is a nonentity because he has published nothing. Michael Mills' observations were correct in the minimum that Krege needed to do for a credible report.

    I liked the video series, just not the narrator's voice. I can't place why I don't like it exactly but but probably because I can't associate it with a face and it's apparently not a hired voice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Roberto writes:
    "This addition is arbitrary and in contradiction with Arad’s description, which speaks of some sand or chlorine being scattered between the layers of bodies."

    But Arad had written:
    "Sand or chlorine was scattered between the layers of bodies."

    We should clarify first how it is possible to scatter sand between two layers of bodies. (I assume layers are horizontal).

    Did someone lift up the upper dead body? And a second person scattered?

    We need to find out because this would be a hint about the thicknes of the sand layer.

    What does the eyewitness say?

    Why are you allowed to assume "some"?

    Questions, questions, questions!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Roberto,
    Thank you for proving that Arad is a charlatan.

    Could you provide us with a corrected map similar to Arad's map with the mass graves according to your calculation.

    Could you draw the places of the pyres as well? And the area where the bone crushing took place?

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. >Roberto writes:
    >"This addition is arbitrary and in contradiction with Arad’s description, which speaks of some >sand or chlorine being scattered between the layers of bodies."

    >But Arad had written:
    >"Sand or chlorine was scattered between the layers of bodies."

    >We should clarify first how it is possible to scatter sand between two layers of bodies. (I >assume layers are horizontal).

    >Did someone lift up the upper dead body? And a second person scattered?

    No, what Arad obviously means is that sand or chlorine was poured onto one layer of bodies before the next layer of bodies was placed on top of it.

    >We need to find out because this would be a hint about the thicknes of the sand layer.

    Feel free to explain how so.

    >What does the eyewitness say?

    Go find out.

    >Why are you allowed to assume "some"?

    Because there’s no indication of the thickness of the layer, as one might expect if it were more than just "some".

    >Questions, questions, questions!

    Arguments would be more interesting. But you have none, have you?

    ReplyDelete
  5. >Roberto,
    >Thank you for proving that Arad is a charlatan.

    Feel free to show where I’m supposed to have done that, or submit to the conclusion that you’re prone to wishful thinking.

    >Could you provide us with a corrected map similar to Arad's map with the mass graves >according to your calculation.

    I’m no good at drawing and also see no reason to comply with your request. If you want a map, feel free to draw one yourself.

    >Could you draw the places of the pyres as well? And the area where the bone crushing took >place?

    Same as above.

    >Thank you!

    You’re welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If it was just a very thin layer of sand over the bodies, then why would it have taken half the crew to do it? Half the crew implies a significantly thick layer doesn't it? And certainly that sand would have been there to aid in the decomposition process, and so they would have put sand between the bodies as well. So suppose we have a width per person of 20 inches with 6 inches between the bodies where sand goes. That gives us 26 inches, and they're not football players. And even if you put width to equal the skinniest person you know, and do the math as shown in the video, you still won't have near enough burial space.

    The width of a body is the only thing you can find wrong with this 4 hour movie, so you pretend you only saw a little bit of the movie.

    You also wrote that the director doesn't mention Kola's study. Yes he does, and shows diagrams from it too. In chapter 18 and 19 of the movie.
    http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous said...
    >If it was just a very thin layer of sand over the bodies, then why would it have taken half the >crew to do it? Half the crew implies a significantly thick layer doesn't it?

    I don’t see why. Half the crew covering the bodies with sand or chlorine was related to the pit being very huge and there being a lot of bodies, if you ask me.

    >And certainly that sand would have been there to aid in the decomposition process, and so they >would have put sand between the bodies as well. So suppose we have a width per person of 20 >inches with 6 inches between the bodies where sand goes.

    What are your 6 inches based on? Nothing, if you ask me. If the key issue was saving space, the bodies would be squeezed together as tightly as possible, no sand or quicklime in between in addition to on top of them.

    >That gives us 26 inches, and they're not football players.

    Desperately eager to make it 26 inches, aren’t you? Be realistic. An average person’s width is 18 inches or ca. 46 centimeters, for all I know. If we assume 1.60 meters length, 46 centimeters width and 23 centimeters height, we get a volume of 0.1693 cubic meters per person or 5.9 persons per cubic meter. But this calculation is wrong because we don’t have x average persons in the grave, but a population consisting mainly of women, children and elderly men, and even the young adult males were emaciated Jews. Let's ignore the latter and make the following calculation, assuming a height of 0.3 meters for every person:

    i) A male adult like myself, 187 cms high and with a shoulder width of 45 cms, would occupy ca. 0.2525 cubic meters;
    ii) A women with the measurements of my girlfriend, 160 cms high and with a shoulder width of 30 cms, would occupy ca. 0.144 cubic meters;
    iii) A ten year old child, 140 cms. high and with a shoulder width of 20 cms, would occupy ca. 0.0840 cubic meters; ´
    iv) A child up to five years, 90 cms high and with a shoulder width of 20 cms, would occupy ca. 0.0540 cubic meters.
    The people who were taken to Treblinka consisted mostly of women, children and elderly people, considered unfit to work. I think it’s reasonable to assume that no more than 10 % of those transported there were younger adult males, 50 % were women or elderly males and 40 % were children equally divided between elder and younger ones, i.e. 20 % each. This means that the average volume of a deportee taken to Treblinka, in cubic meters, would be the following: [(0.2525 * 10) + (0.144 * 50) + (0.084 * 20) + (0.054 * 20)] / 100 = 0.1248, which means that one cubic meter of burial space could take ca. 8 dead bodies.

    I assumed a height of 0,3 meters for all persons in the above calculation. If I used the height assumed by the filmmaker (ca. 23 cm) for all persons, the density would go up to about 10 persons per cubic meter.

    Yet this calculation is also wrong insofar as I assumed (as did the filmmaker) that the bodies are inside a virtual box the measurements of which correspond to their length, height and width, which they are not. It is more correct to calculate each section of the body, as was done by Alex Bay, see under http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/appendixd/appendixd2.shtml, who arrived at a concentration of ca. 10.7 bodies with the measurements of the "ideal man" per cubic meter.

    >And even if you put width to equal the >skinniest person you know, and do the math as shown >in the video, you still won't have near >enough burial space.

    Not that it matters, but feel free do show me your calculations.

    >The width of a body is the only thing you can find wrong with this 4 hour movie, so you >pretend you only saw a little bit of the movie.

    You should have read my article before writing the above. You might have noticed that I made it clear that I only looked at episodes 11 and 12 and concluded from these that it wasn’t worth while to look at the rest of the stuff, in which I expected the same kind of hoaxing. You might also have noticed there are other things besides the body width that are wrong in episode 11. The filmmaker misunderstood Arad’s description, first of all. Then he calculated the dimensions of a body as if it were in the aforementioned virtual box. He assumed a layer of sand or chlorine almost 18 cms thick based on nothing. He calculated as if he were dealing with a "population" of adult males with rather wide shoulders. And then he used drawings and models that don’t pretend to show actual relative sizes and distances true to scale, namely that from Arad’s book, to calculate the area of the graves, which is frankly ridiculous.

    >You also wrote that the director doesn't mention Kola's study. Yes he does, and shows >diagrams from it too. In chapter 18 and 19 of the movie.
    >http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com

    So glad to know that, but I made no pretension to have looked at the whole movie, as explained before. Chapters 18 and 19, if they mention Kola’s study as you say, may be the subject of a future article. I wouldn’t be surprised to find enjoyable herrings there as well.

    As we’re at it, and as you seem to know this film so well, can you tell me in which episode(s) they provide alternative scenarios for the fate of the 1,38 million Jews they claim were not murdered at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka? That’s something I would love to have a laugh at.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Contrary to what your brilliant analysis states, the video genius' interpretation of Arad's body layup description saves more space than the "true" one you seem to be describing.

    If I understand you correctly, you seem to be proposing an arrangement in which each body is rotated 180 degrees with respect to the bodies on either side of it. How would that lead to any compaction at all? This would not, as you claim, create a "partial overlap" that would "avoid empty lateral spaces":

    000 00 00
    000 00 00
    0 00 00
    000000000 00 00
    0 0000000 0 0000000
    0 0000000 0 0000000
    0 0000000 0 0 0000000 0
    0 0000000 0 0 0000000 0
    0000000 0 0000000 0
    0000000 0 0000000 0
    00 00 000000000
    00 00 0
    00 00 000
    00 00 000

    At least Ugly Voice's interpretation allows for a significant overlapping in the direction of the long body axis.

    Arad's ambiguous wording allows for either interpretation. Ugly Voice has chosen the one that leads to the greatest amount of compaction, so I think one can conclude that it would have been the most likely choice.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Here's one more try at the ascii diagram, to avoid the distorting effect of multiple blank elimination:

    ......000........00....00
    ......000........00....00
    .......0..........00....00
    .000000000.....00....00
    0.0000000.0....0000000
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    ...0000000....0.0000000.0
    ...00....00.....000000000
    ...00....00..........0
    ...00....00.........000
    ...00....00.........000

    This body arrangement would not be any more susceptible to lateral compression, than if there were no alternation of orientation:

    ....000.............000
    ....000.............000
    .....0................0
    .000000000...000000000
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    ..0000000.....0000000
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00

    Again, Ugly Voice's interpretation of Arad's words, not Muelenkamp's, has to be the correct one.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Roberto. The big problem I found with your analysis is that not 1 "witness" mentions 10 graves. In peter laponder's latest model, there are 6 graves. So I don't know why you use the "10 graves" figure when not one witness has mentioned that number.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Brodie
    >Contrary to what your brilliant >analysis states, the video >genius' interpretation
    >of Arad's body layup description >saves more space than the "true" >one you seem to be describing.

    No, it doesn’t.

    >If I understand you correctly, >you seem to be proposing an >arrangement in which each body is >rotated 180 degrees with respect >to the bodies on either >side of >it. How would that lead to any >compaction at all? This would >not, as you claim, create >a "partial >overlap" that >would "avoid empty lateral >spaces":

    It would insofar as the wider part of one body, the torso, would be lying next to the leaner part of another body, the legs. The only empty lateral spaces would be the relatively small distances between one body’s head and the next body’s feet.

    >
    000 00 00
    000 00 00
    0 00 00
    000000000 00 00
    0 0000000 0 0000000
    0 0000000 0 0000000
    0 0000000 0 0 0000000 0
    0 0000000 0 0 0000000 0
    0000000 0 0000000 0
    0000000 0 0000000 0
    00 00 000000000
    00 00 0
    00 00 000
    00 00 000
    >

    What’s that supposed to show? Try with bodies.

    >At least Ugly Voice's >interpretation allows for a >significant overlapping in the >direction of the long body axis.

    So does mine if you fill the empty spaces between heads and feet with the heads or feet of other bodies. Yet unlike mine, UV’s arrangement wastes space along the wide body axis by augmenting the lateral spaces between the bodies. Just look at his computer models.

    >Arad's ambiguous wording allows >for either interpretation.

    No, it does not. Head to foot, Brodie.

    >Ugly Voice has chosen the one >that leads to the greatest amount >of compaction, so I think one can >conclude that it would have been >the most likely choice.

    No, Ugly Voice chose the one that leads to a waste of space, so I think one can conclude that it would not have been the most likely choice. Besides, it's not the one described by witnesses, on whose data Arad presumably based his description.

    Brodie
    >Here's one more try at the ascii >diagram, to avoid the distorting >effect of multiple blank >elimination:

    ......000........00....00
    ......000........00....00
    .......0..........00....00
    .000000000.....00....00
    0.0000000.0....0000000
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0..0.0000000.0
    ...0000000....0.0000000.0
    ...00....00.....000000000
    ...00....00..........0
    ...00....00.........000
    ...00....00.........000

    >This body arrangement would not >be any more susceptible to >lateral compression, than if >there were no alternation of >orientation:

    ....000.............000
    ....000.............000
    .....0................0
    .000000000...000000000
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    0.0000000.0.0.0000000.0
    ..0000000.....0000000
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00
    ..00....00......00....00

    Nice naughts and dots. What are they supposed to tell us? Try with bodies.

    >Again, Ugly Voice's >interpretation of Arad's words, >not Muelenkamp's, has to be the >correct one.

    No way, Brodie. But relax, that’s not UV’s worst manipulation. His exaggerated body measurements are worse, and the howler is the arbitrarily thick layer of sand or chlorine, which is at odds with the evidence.

    Really, Brodie, do you consider a mere 3 bodies per cubic meter realistic, especially when most of them were women and children and elderly folks, and even the comparatively few young adult males didn’t exactly have UV’s measurements either?

    ReplyDelete
  12. >Anonymous said...
    >Hi Roberto.
    >The big problem I found with your analysis is that not 1 "witness"

    Why the quote marks? Any indication you can show us that any witness was not really a witness, or do you just want to make a fool of yourself?

    >mentions 10 graves.

    Feel free to quote all eyewitness testimonies you have looked at, but what’s the problem supposed to be? As the Düsseldorf Court of Assizes stated in its judgment at the first Treblinka trial, the number of graves could not be established because testimonies in this respect were different from each other. What matters here, however, is not the number of graves but the amount of grave space available. Whether it’s ten graves with the measurements 50 x 25 x 10 meters or 5 graves with twice the area each, the grave space is the same.

    >In peter laponder's latest model, there are 6 graves.

    So what? As there are no unequivocal data about the number of graves, Laponder’s 6 graves are a mere guess, just like my 10 graves.

    >So I don't know why you use the "10 graves" figure when not one witness has >mentioned that number.

    To show that the graves area was large enough to accommodate ten graves with the measurements 50 x 25 x 10 meters and still leave 7,500 square meters to enable movement in between the graves, as you might have realized had you read the article with more attention.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Muehlenkamp says, concerning his version of a head to foot body placement:

    It would [result in lateral overlap] insofar as the wider part of one body, the torso, would be lying next to the leaner part of another body, the legs. The only empty lateral spaces would be the relatively small distances between one body’s head and the next body’s feet.

    Maybe you're some kind of a freak whose legs are fully half your total height! But the fact is that if two average human beings are lying next to each other in your proposed version of a head to foot arrangement, their torsos will significantly overlap at the abdomens - and in general the hip will be the widest part of the body.

    The minimum width of a row of such bodies will be the sum of the widths of all the torsos. No lateral compression can be achieved with such an arrangement by flopping the heads and legs around, because whatever LOCAL "compression" you might achieve by trying to push together the heads and legs of an adjacent pair, will simply OPEN UP space on either side of that pair, resulting in a GLOBAL compression of exactly zero.

    In spite of your denial, I continue to maintain that Arad's ambiguous wording allows for both yours and UV's interpretations. What Arad said was "each head lay between the feet of two other corpses, and each pair of feet between two heads." With the exception of course of bodies at the edges of the pit, both your layout and UV's satisfy this requirement. So not only was UV's "misunderstanding" not necessarily "deliberate", as you claim it "presumably" was, it was not even a misunderstanding at all, merely one of two possible interpretations, neither of which is inconsistent with Arad's incomplete specification.

    Anonymous,

    I think you are wrong to claim that the sand/dirt was "to help in the decomposition process." I believe it would have been done for two other reasons: in order to avoid major settling as the total body volume diminshed with decomposition, and to help clear away the huge excavated pile that would presumably have been on top of where the next adjacent pit would have to be dug.

    Both of these reasons would argue for considerably more of a vertical layer on top of the bodies than the riduclously thin film that Muehlenkamp suggests.

    Given these considerations, I think UV probably UNDERestimates the number of such pits that would have been required to accomodate three quarters of a million people.

    So Muehlenkamp, yes I do think that three bodies per cubic meter is realistic, given the tender care they were supposed to have taken with the two-dimensional arrangement of each layer. If they had really been after the tightest possible packing, so as to be able to cram as many bodies as possible into their extremely limited amount of burial space, then they would have just bulldozed and/or thrown the bodies into the pits in random heaps.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What really boggles the mind is trying to visualize the logistics of digging and filling these pits in the first place, let alone the nightmare of trying to completely EMPTY them of their massive content of bodies and dirt, supposedly in order to dispose of evidence that might have been incriminating in a future war crimes trial.

    Treating only the easiest part, the initial excavation, such a pit could not have had four vertical sides. Well, it's not impossible but would have been highly unlikely due to the difficulty of elevating the dirt out of it at increasingly deeper levels (remember these pits were supposed to have been FOUR STORIES deep!) Instead there would have to have been dirt ramps, at least at one end and preferably both, with sufficiently shallow gradients to allow dirt moving machinery to drive down into and back up out of them - and those ramps would have to have been continually re-compacted to avoid dirt moving equipment from getting mired. That is unless you want to propose that some kind of massive wood or metal ramps were installed - which certainly would have been mentioned by any eye-witnesses.

    The area of the ramp(s) would of course have to be subtracted from the available burial area. And there would have to be a complete hiatus of activity during the entire rainy season because of the danger of 30 foot high vertical faces experiencing catastrophic collapses.

    What seems easy to the mind of a story fabricator, turns out to involve all kinds of complications to an engineering mind contemplating the implementation of such a grandiose fantasy into reality.

    ReplyDelete
  15. There is no evidence that these people, or any that followed, were ever taken anywhere further,

    and no evidence that they weren't

    and no more than a few dozen survivors from among these deportees ever showed up.

    Well, how many did you expect to "show up", and where? The small number of detainees this camp was designed to accomodate may well have scattered to the four winds sometime near the war's end, without any instructions as to where they were supposed to "report," and then simply died of sickness, exposure, starvation, and disease at various unknown locations.

    You can't draw reliable conclusions based on nothing but suppositions and speculation.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Brodie
    >Muehlenkamp says, concerning his version of a head to foot body placement:

    >It would [result in lateral overlap] insofar as the wider part of one body, the torso, would be >lying next to the leaner part of another body, the legs. The only empty lateral spaces would be >the relatively small distances between one body’s head and the next body’s feet.

    >Maybe you're some kind of a freak whose legs are fully half your total height!

    No, I was just simplifying the thing. And I’m glad to see Brodie revealing his true self.

    >But the fact is that if two average human beings are lying next to each other in your proposed >version of a head to foot arrangement, their torsos will significantly overlap at the abdomens - >and in general the hip will be the widest part of the body.

    A very general statement, Brodie. I’d say the degree of overlapping depends on the relative sizes of the bodies lying together, which is never equal. In any case, a significant part of one body's wider upper half will tend to lie next to the adjacent body’s leaner lower half, so there will always be some overlapping of widths.

    >The minimum width of a row of such bodies will be the sum of the widths of all the torsos.

    Only if a) all bodies have exactly the same length and build (which is never the case) and b) the bodies were placed hip to hip (which would not be a smart thing to do).

    >No lateral compression can be achieved with such an arrangement by flopping the heads and >legs around, because whatever LOCAL "compression" you might achieve by trying to push >together the heads and legs of an adjacent pair, will simply OPEN UP space on either side of >that pair,

    Which can be closed by the proceeding in the same manner with the next bodies on either side of that pair.

    >resulting in a GLOBAL compression of exactly zero.

    “Zero” would mean no waste. UV’s arrangement, on the other hand, entails waste.

    >In spite of your denial, I continue to maintain that Arad's ambiguous wording allows for both >yours and UV's interpretations. What Arad said was "each head lay between the feet of two >other corpses, and each pair of feet between two heads."

    You forgot the part about the “head to foot” arrangement, of course.

    >With the exception of course of bodies at the edges of the pit, both your layout and UV's satisfy >this requirement. So not only was UV's "misunderstanding" not necessarily "deliberate", as you >claim it "presumably" was, it was not even a misunderstanding at all, merely one of two >possible interpretations, neither of which is inconsistent with Arad's incomplete specification.

    Head to foot, Brodie. You need a some fantasy to make that into an arrangement that looks like a pyramid of athletes at a sports event.

    >Anonymous,

    >I think you are wrong to claim that the sand/dirt was "to help in the decomposition process." I >believe it would have been done for two other reasons: in order to avoid major settling as the >total body volume diminshed with decomposition, and to help clear away the huge excavated >pile that would presumably have been on top of where the next adjacent pit would have to be >dug.

    Great, and on what basis do you believe that? The “huge excavated pile that would presumably have been on top” could be removed to somewhere else in the camp or out of the camp (in fact there is evidence that sand was taken by rail out of the camp). And I don’t see why the SS should have been interested in avoiding major settling as the total body volume diminished with decomposition. On the contrary, such settling would have stretched the grave volume available and thus been entirely desirable.

    >Both of these reasons would argue for considerably more of a vertical layer on top of the bodies >than the riduclously thin film that Muehlenkamp suggests.

    Ah, it's the desired argument that makes you “believe” that the sand or quicklime was not meant to hasten the decomposition process. Thought so. And calling what becomes apparent from the evidence “ridiculous” doesn’t make it ridiculous let alone do away with it.

    >Given these considerations, I think UV probably UNDERestimates the number of such pits that >would have been required to accomodate three quarters of a million people.

    What considerations, Brodie? You have added nothing to UV’s overblown body dimensions or his ridiculously thick (given the evidence, I’m entitled to say that) layer of sand or quicklime. You haven’t even added anything to the sporting arrangement of the bodies that UV dreamed up, though that is the least of his manipulations. So your claim has no basis whatsoever, Brodie. It’s mere rhetoric.

    >So Muehlenkamp, yes I do think that three bodies per cubic meter is realistic, given the tender >care they were supposed to have taken with the two-dimensional arrangement of each layer. If >they had really been after the tightest possible packing, so as to be able to cram as many >bodies as possible into their extremely limited amount of burial space, then they would have >just bulldozed and/or thrown the bodies into the pits in random heaps.

    A non sequitur argument at best, Brodie. You think throwing the bodies in at random would have saved more space than arranging them so as to avoid empty spaces, in a manner meant to allow for squeezing the bodies as closely together and on top of each other as possible? Some strange ideas you’ve got, Brodie. One of my previous posts contains calculation I made of the number of bodies that would fit into one cubic meter of burial space, with assumed measurements of a group of people reflecting the probable proportion of men, women and children of various ages among the deportees to Treblinka. This calculation leads to 8 bodies per cubic meter, and it is rather conservative in comparison to Alex Bay’s calculation and that resulting from Charles Provan’s experiment, both of which are mentioned in my article. Feel free to tell us what you think is wrong with either calculation.

    >What really boggles the mind is trying to visualize the logistics of digging and filling these pits in >the first place, let alone the nightmare of trying to completely EMPTY them of their massive >content of bodies and dirt, supposedly in order to dispose of evidence that might have been >incriminating in a future war crimes trial.

    Did anybody claim it was a piece of cake, Brodie? I don’t think so.

    >Treating only the easiest part, the initial excavation, such a pit could not have had four vertical >sides. Well, it's not impossible but would have been highly unlikely due to the difficulty of >elevating the dirt out of it at increasingly deeper levels (remember these pits were supposed to >have been FOUR STORIES deep!) Instead there would have to have been dirt ramps, at least at >one end and preferably both, with sufficiently shallow gradients to allow dirt moving machinery >to drive down into and back up out of them - and those ramps would have to have been >continually re-compacted to avoid dirt moving equipment from getting mired. That is unless you >want to propose that some kind of massive wood or metal ramps were installed - which >certainly would have been mentioned by any eye-witnesses.

    >The area of the ramp(s) would of course have to be subtracted from the available burial area.

    Let’s see your calculations, then. Alex Bay assumes that, considering the necessary sloping of the walls to keep them from caving in, a pit with the measurements 50 x 25 x 10 meters would have had a volume of 8,502 cubic meters available for burial. This would be a factor reducing the number of bodies that could be buried in such grave, in relation to a hypothetical but improbable grave with four vertical sides. On the other hand, however, you have to consider that the bodies were not all thrown inside the graves at the same time, but over a period of weeks, and that the bodies in the lower layers would already have been consumed by quicklime and natural decomposition by the time the layers on top were added (as you correctly pointed out, there would have been a major settling of the bodies; that settling would have augmented the space available). This means that any mathematical calculation of the density of corpses you make, whether it’s UV’s ridiculously low one or the more reasonable ones I mentioned, would necessarily be below the real thing, unless you find a way to quantify the effect of the settling.

    >And there would have to be a complete hiatus of activity during the entire rainy season because >of the danger of 30 foot high vertical faces experiencing catastrophic collapses.

    Still talking about vertical walls, or have you already taken sloping into consideration, as Bay did?

    >What seems easy to the mind of a story fabricator, turns out to involve all kinds of >complications to an engineering mind contemplating the implementation of such a grandiose
    >fantasy into reality.

    There’s no such thing as a “story fabricator” outside your wishful thinking, Brodie. There are numerous witnesses who independently of each other, some of them as perpetrators accused of having participated in the killing, described the camp’s features and the killing and body disposal process in more or less great detail. Nobody claimed that the process didn’t involve considerable difficulties, but none of these difficulties were such that they could not be managed with the people and the equipment available. And there is documentary and demographic evidence confirming the eyewitnesses’ accounts, which in turn is not contradicted by the physical findings at the camp site, however hard your kind tries to make believe otherwise for lack of better arguments. For all your haggling about supposed inconsistencies and absurdities in the record of the process, there’s nothing remotely as inconsistent and absurd as the inane conspiracy theories all that haggling is based on.

    >There is no evidence that these people, or any that followed, were ever taken anywhere >further,

    >and no evidence that they weren't

    Dead wrong, Brodie. Numerous eyewitness testimonies to the killing aside, there is documentary evidence showing places like Treblinka to have been final destinations for the people taken there; these documents would have stated something else if these camps had just been transit stations. And if they had been, if at least 1.4 million people had really been moved through these camps to somewhere in the “Russian East”, this would have been a huge operation leaving behind a huge paper trail, which there was no reason for the Nazis to destroy. And besides the paper trail, there would have been many thousands of witnesses from among the organizers and guards of the transports, the officials in charge of providing accommodation at the places of destination, the local inhabitants of such places and, last but not least, the deportees themselves, who could provide accounts of these resettlement transports, of what happened to them at their destinations, how they got back to their places of origin or emigrated somewhere else, etc. Yet there’s no such evidence, not a shred. All records end in Belzec, Sobibor or Treblinka, and no eyewitness - including those accused of participating in the killing or the organization of the deportations, in whose interest it would have been to claim this -
    said that the deportees were taken anywhere else.

    >and no more than a few dozen survivors from among these deportees ever showed up.

    >Well, how many did you expect to "show up",

    At least 1.4 million.

    >and where?

    First in the places of resettlement in the “Russian East”, then – minus those who succumbed to hardship there, which would never have been all or even most of the deportees – back in their home country or in third countries they emigrated to, always with records and eyewitness accounts documenting their movements, plenty thereof. If you really believe that 1.4 million people can vanish from their places of origin and go somewhere else without leaving behind lots of records and accounts wherever they come and go, then you’re not living in this world.

    >The small number of detainees this camp was designed to accomodate may well have scattered >to the four winds sometime near the war's end, without any instructions as to where they were >supposed to "report," and then simply died of sickness, exposure, starvation, and disease at >various unknown locations.

    The small number of detainees that Treblinka was designed to accommodate maybe, but not 713,555 people who, according to an SS radio report intercepted by British intelligence, were delivered at Treblinka until 31.12.1942 alone. 713,555 people don’t just die at some unknown place “of sickness, exposure, starvation, and disease” without leaving a lot of evidence behind, sorry. Time for you to get real, Brodie.

    >You can't draw reliable conclusions based on nothing but suppositions and speculation.

    I don’t, but you certainly do. You simply postulate what you would like to believe, based on nothing but idiotic conspiracy theories about “story fabricators”. If the difficulties of body disposal at Treblinka boggle your mind, how come it isn’t boggled by the impossible task - making thousands of people provide false incriminating eyewitness accounts or confessions in an essentially coincident manner, fabricating, falsifying or suppressing thousands of documents in archives and offices throughout Europe, silencing thousands of potential exonerating witnesses, inducing hundreds of thousands of people (millions, if you consider the record of Nazi mass killings as a whole) into concealing their origin and/or their identity from whoever might record the same – that your “story fabricators” would have had to accomplish and uphold over a period of decades, all without leaving behind a shred of evidence to their monstrous manipulations?

    Have a look here, Brodie: http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html . This site describes some characteristics of people like yourself. The one that shows most prominently in your nonsense about “story fabricators” is the following:

    «5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.»

    I suggest you give that a thought, Brodie. You don’t seem to be beyond improvement. Unless, of course, the obsession with this subject that led you to shoot three posts in a row is due to the fact that you are the author, or one of the authors, of that filthy video. Are you, Brodie?

    Last but not least: calling you “Brodie” instead of “Mr. Brodie” may be impolite, but you started this game by calling me “Muelenkamp”. If you show manners, so will I. It’s all up to you.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I’m glad to see Brodie revealing his true self.

    By which statement you reveal your true self - one who resorts to aspersive innuendo, name calling, and other ad hominem kinds of distractions, especially when you sense that your party-line argumentation is wearing thin and being more and more revealed for what it is.

    the degree of overlapping depends on the relative sizes of the bodies lying together, which is never equal.

    So suddenly a nice clean relatively manageable placement problem beomes a real challenging puzzle, with the tops and bottoms of the rows growing increasingly irregular and thus ever more impossible to achieve your ideal (but unachievable) overlapping

    a significant part of one body's wider upper half will tend to lie next to the adjacent body’s leaner lower half

    The lower half isn't all that lean compared to the upper half. The upper portion of the thighs, in particular, tends to be just as wide as the lower portions of the torso. But that doesn't really make any difference, because you can't achieve any lateral compression for the following two reasons:

    1. any squeezing together you can do with the heads and legs merely opens up elsewhere the same amount of space you "saved"; and

    2. you can only keep on "filling up" the resulting opened space to the extent that heads and legs can be contorted and stretched ever farther away from the torsos to which they are connected.

    The only way your scheme could yield any lateral compression is if you cut off all the heads and legs and jammed them all to one side along the tops and bottoms of the rows, thereby opening up space at the other end to be able to place a few extra bodies rotated 90 degrees.

    “Zero” would mean no waste. UV’s arrangement, on the other hand, entails waste.

    No, he actually achieves vertical compression - and without having to chop bodies up.

    You forgot the part about the “head to foot” arrangement

    In UV's system heads are next to feet, every bit as much as they are in your system. I don't know how many times you are going to have to be told before it sinks in - Arad's wording is sufficiently ambiguous as to allow for both of these possible interpretations.

    Head to foot, Brodie. You need a some fantasy to make that into an arrangement that looks like a pyramid of athletes at a sports event.

    No, you don't need fantasy. You just need eyes: the heads are next to the feet.


    there is evidence that sand was taken by rail out of the camp

    Oh, were there some bills of lading to that effect? It would be interesting to find out the volume of such excavated material that was somehow hauled out of the "killing" area, from pits equivalent to the foundation excavations of a dozen or more large skyscrapers, piled clear over alongside the railroad tracks, and then loaded into hopper cars with crane buckets instead of some kind of funneling system, without disturbing the rails and the rail bed.

    I don’t see why the SS should have been interested in avoiding major settling as the total body volume diminished with decomposition

    The alleged killing and burial rate was such that the working pit would have been completely filled before any significant settling occurred from decomposition. So the settling would have occurred later leaving an irregular landscape unsuitable for subsequent potential use in constructing additional facilites, etc.

    Another reason for wanting to have a substantial (at least 6 to 9 inch) and somewhat packed topping of dirt over the bodies, would be that in the approximate process of trying to prepare a relatively level base for the next higher layer, the workers wouldn't be stepping on and sinking down into soft body cavities, but would instead have a relatively stable surface to walk around and work on - not too mention avoiding rakes from always getting snagged up on people's nostrils. Plus the stench would have been better contained than with a thin layer, one that would always result in bodies getting partially exposed due to rain, scavenging birds and animals, etc.

    You think throwing the bodies in at random would have saved more space than arranging them so as to avoid empty spaces

    Yes. Under its own weight such a pile would have compressed itself much more effectively than all this completely unnecessary and tedious arranging.

    Let’s see your calculations, then.

    Let's be generous and say that there is just one ramp per pit. It would need to to have a slope of no more than 15 degrees for a bulldozer to be able to climb it (although if this terrain was really sand rather than compactable dirt, no heavy machinery would be able to drive in and out - but that's another story.)

    The bottom of the ramp would need to be 115 feet into the pit - just 35 feet short of the opposite end. You might be able to keep it to 25 feet wide (half the width of the pit), so initially you're going to lose about one fifth of the pit's volume. The sand left inside the pit could be used for filling around the lower layers of bodies, with the lowermost layers being restricted to about a third of the floor area. All told I'd say these considerations result in the pit capacity being reduced by somehwere between a fourth and a third.

    Now if you don't mind (or even if you do) I'm just going to pass, on your supercilious little philosophy lectures, and try to keep the discussion focused on the facts.

    You don’t seem to be beyond improvement. Unless, of course, the obsession with this subject that led you to shoot three posts in a row is due to the fact that you are the author, or one of the authors, of that filthy video. Are you, Brodie?

    I thought that guy wanted to remain anonymous.

    Last but not least: calling you “Brodie” instead of “Mr. Brodie” may be impolite, but you started this game by calling me “Muelenkamp”.

    I apologize for not spelling your name correctly when I first referred to you (referred to, not addressed). If you look back through this exchange, you'll see that you were actually the first one to address me with just my last name - five times in your first response and about a dozen times altogether, whereas I have addressed you (2nd person) once in that manner, and referred to you (3rd person) twice, conscientiously trying to avoid the insult of a misspelling.

    Actually on an impersonal blog like this it doesn't make any difference to me whether I'm called Mr., Herr (in jest), Richard, or Brodie.

    So Mr. Muehlenkamp, I'll end by giving you a little piece of ammunition with which you may wish to try and demolish my ramp theory:

    Menck & Hambrock

    ReplyDelete
  18. >I’m glad to see Brodie revealing his true self.

    >By which statement you reveal your true self - one who resorts to aspersive innuendo, >name calling, and other ad hominem kinds of distractions, especially when you sense >that your party-line argumentation is wearing thin and being more and more revealed >for what it is.

    Says someone who started out asking whether I was “some kind of a freak …”. But it’s not uncommon to see your kind projecting their own fallacies onto their opponents.

    >the degree of overlapping depends on the relative sizes of the bodies lying together, >which is never equal.

    >So suddenly a nice clean relatively manageable placement problem beomes a real >challenging puzzle, with the tops and bottoms of the rows growing increasingly irregular >and thus ever more impossible to achieve your ideal (but unachievable) overlapping

    What exactly is my “ideal” overlapping supposed to have been? Mind what I wrote in the article:

    «Arad obviously refers to a head-to-foot arrangement of the bodies in the sense that the head of the second body was placed next to the feet of the first one, the feet of the third body were placed next to the head of the second body, the head of the fourth body was placed next to the feet of the third body, and so on. For only thus would the arrangement lead to saving space, which Arad states to have been the purpose, by creating a partial overlap between the widths of the bodies and avoiding empty lateral spaces in between them. What the "Revisionist" video genius made of this, on the other hand, cannot be called a head-to-foot arrangement; it rather looks like a human pyramid formed by athletes at a sporting event standing on each other’s shoulders. Neither does it save space, for whatever space is gained by partially overlapping one body’s head with the lower limbs and feet of the bodies next to it is lost by enlarging the empty lateral spaces between the bodies in relation to what they would be if the bodies were simply placed shoulder to shoulder. It may even be argued that this arrangement wastes space rather than saving any.»

    >a significant part of one body's wider upper half will tend to lie next to the adjacent >body’s leaner lower half

    >The lower half isn't all that lean compared to the upper half. The upper portion of the >thighs, in particular, tends to be just as wide as the lower portions of the torso.

    Yeah, but the upper half of the neighboring torso is likely to have been lying near the lower portion of the thighs, if body sizes were similar.

    >But that doesn't really make any difference, because you can't achieve any lateral >compression for the following two reasons:

    >1. any squeezing together you can do with the heads and legs merely opens up elsewhere >the same amount of space you "saved"; and

    >2. you can only keep on "filling up" the resulting opened space to the extent that heads >and legs can be contorted and stretched ever farther away from the torsos to which they >are connected.

    Maybe so, but that means you can’t reduce the space between the bodies to zero by contorting and stretching. It doesn’t mean you can’t save any space at all. Besides, I wasn’t necessarily talking about contorting and stretching in the first place. The parameter of comparison to determine whether “my” arrangement saves spaces or not is an arrangement in which all bodies are lying in the same direction, shoulder to shoulder. In that arrangement you will have considerable open space between the heads and between the legs. This space cannot be wholly eliminated by turning every other body around, but it can be reduced, and that’s the point of the exercise.

    >The only way your scheme could yield any lateral compression is if you cut off all the >heads and legs and jammed them all to one side along the tops and bottoms of the rows, >thereby opening up space at the other end to be able to place a few extra bodies rotated >90 degrees.

    Mind the parameter of comparison, as mentioned above.

    >“Zero” would mean no waste. UV’s arrangement, on the other hand, entails waste.

    >No, he actually achieves vertical compression - and without having to chop bodies up.

    I can achieve a similar effect by introducing heads or feet along the length axis into empty spaces between other head and feet. What I avoid and UV doesn’t is enlarging the lateral space between the bodies, who in UV’s arrangement would no longer be even shoulder to shoulder.

    >You forgot the part about the “head to foot” arrangement

    >In UV's system heads are next to feet, every bit as much as they are in your system. I >don't know how many times you are going to have to be told before it sinks in - Arad's >wording is sufficiently ambiguous as to allow for both of these possible interpretations.

    Sorry, but the image conveyed by the expression “head to foot” is not that of heads being next to feet any which way. It is that of one body’s head being next to the other body’s feet, and vice-versa.

    >Head to foot, Brodie. You need a some fantasy to make that into an arrangement that >looks like a pyramid of athletes at a sports event.

    >No, you don't need fantasy. You just need eyes: the heads are next to the feet.

    Just read again what I wrote before.

    >there is evidence that sand was taken by rail out of the camp

    >Oh, were there some bills of lading to that effect?

    Ask Mr. Mattogno. He’s the source: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/07/that-removed-soil-problem.html

    >It would be interesting to find out the volume of such excavated material that was >somehow hauled out of the "killing" area, from pits equivalent to the foundation >excavations of a dozen or more large skyscrapers, piled clear over alongside the railroad >tracks, and then loaded into hopper cars with crane buckets instead of some kind of >funneling system, without disturbing the rails and the rail bed.

    So the problem would be some sand dropping onto the rails during the loading? Just clean it away.

    >I don’t see why the SS should have been interested in avoiding major settling as the >total body volume diminished with decomposition

    >The alleged killing and burial rate was such that the working pit would have been >completely filled before any significant settling occurred from decomposition.

    Was it? I don’t think so. The greatest number of people killed in one day was 12,000 to 15,000 according to eyewitness testim0nies, but the daily average was lower than that. During the initial period, only one train per day carrying about 5,000 Jews from Warsaw arrived at Treblinka. What we know of the pits, on the other hand, suggests that each of them could take in at least 16 times that number. The defendant Suchomel at the first Düsseldorf Treblinka trial, for instance, mentioned that one pit had contained about 80,000 dead bodies.

    >So the settling would have occurred later leaving an irregular landscape unsuitable for >subsequent potential use in constructing additional facilites, etc.

    I don’t see what the problem could have been. What “additional facilities” are you referring to?

    >Another reason for wanting to have a substantial (at least 6 to 9 inch) and somewhat >packed topping of dirt over the bodies, would be that in the approximate process of >trying to prepare a relatively level base for the next higher layer, the workers wouldn't be >stepping on and sinking down into soft body cavities, but would instead have a relatively >stable surface to walk around and work on - not too mention avoiding rakes from always >getting snagged up on people's nostrils.

    You’re not trying to tell us that the SS cared about the Jewish forced laborers’ working conditions, are you?

    >Plus the stench would have been better contained than with a thin layer, one that would >always result in bodies getting partially exposed due to rain, scavenging birds and >animals, etc.

    Well, then they obviously failed to pay attention to that detail, for eyewitness accounts mention the unbearable stench of dead bodies throughout the camp. What is more, the stench also extended to the adjacent areas. As late as October 1942, the local Wehrmacht commander of Ostrow, a town about 20 kms away from Treblinka, complained about the unbearable stench of corpses due to the Jews at Treblinka not being sufficiently buried. There’s a documentary record of his complaint.

    >You think throwing the bodies in at random would have saved more space than >arranging them so as to avoid empty spaces

    >Yes. Under its own weight such a pile would have compressed itself much more >effectively than all this completely unnecessary and tedious arranging.

    I don’t think you can demonstrate that, but feel free to give it a try. The weight effect you mention was achieved with the orderly arrangement as well as soon as the pit was sufficiently full, by which time the settling due to decomposition may have additionally helped compression. But if the bodies had just been thrown in without regard to where they landed, they might have piled up unevenly throughout the graves (more here, less there), over and across each other, and this might have led to considerable empty space in the vertical as well as the horizontal directions. Besides, in order to obtain a piling compression effect exceeding that which was obtained in an orderly arrangement, a number of bodies sufficiently high to fill a considerable part of the grave would have had to be piled up outside the grave in the first place. Given your concern about the stench, I don’t think you would have considered that a practical solution.

    >Let’s see your calculations, then.

    >Let's be generous and say that there is just one ramp per pit. It would need to to have a >slope of no more than 15 degrees for a bulldozer to be able to climb it (although if this >terrain was really sand rather than compactable dirt, no heavy machinery would be able >to drive in and out - but that's another story.)

    >The bottom of the ramp would need to be 115 feet into the pit - just 35 feet short of the >opposite end. You might be able to keep it to 25 feet wide (half the width of the pit), so >initially you're going to lose about one fifth of the pit's volume. The sand left inside the >pit could be used for filling around the lower layers of bodies, with the lowermost layers >being restricted to about a third of the floor area. All told I'd say these considerations >result in the pit capacity being reduced by somehwere between a fourth and a third.

    Oh, you are talking about ramps for the digging machinery. Sorry, I didn’t get that before. To what extent would the digging machinery even have to enter the pit, if it consisted of cable-operated excavators with clamshell buckets such as those shown here: http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/excavators2.html ? This site: http://www.bagger-und-bahnen.de/baumaschinen.htm tells you that cable-operated excavators (Seilbagger, in German) have stood their ground to this day when it comes to excavating in sand or gravel, which may be related to the fact that they don’t have to enter the pits as bulldozers would.

    And assuming that machinery needed to move inside the pit and ramps were required for this purpose, why not remove the ramps, if necessary manually, when the pit was finished? If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that the sand left inside the pit from the ramps be used for filling around the lower layer of bodies. What for, if space is the chief concern? Just take it out.

    >Now if you don't mind (or even if you do) I'm just going to pass, on your supercilious >little philosophy lectures, and try to keep the discussion focused on the facts.

    Frankly, I don’t think you care about the facts any more than a pig does about Sunday. And what you call «supercilious little philosophy lectures» are actually references to a) evidence you can offer nothing against and therefore prefer to ignore and b) the grievous logical fallacies of your conspiraloon reasoning.

    >You don’t seem to be beyond improvement. Unless, of course, the obsession with this >subject that led you to shoot three posts in a row is due to the fact that you are the >author, or one of the authors, of that filthy video. Are you, Brodie?

    >I thought that guy wanted to remain anonymous.

    Come on, Mr. Brodie, think about the advantages, assuming you are the fellow: you will be called by your name in future articles about the video, instead of the “Ugly Voice”. Actually I don’t think your voice is all that ugly when you are reading selected tales and passages from John Gower's Confessio Amantis on your website http://www.richardbrodie.com/Tales/tales.html ; the ugly effect must have come from slowing down the voice for voice-overs or some similar procedure. Assuming you are the fellow, of course. Are you?

    >Last but not least: calling you “Brodie” instead of “Mr. Brodie” may be impolite, but >you started this game by calling me “Muelenkamp”.

    >I apologize for not spelling your name correctly when I first referred to you (referred to, >not addressed). If you look back through this exchange, you'll see that you were actually >the first one to address me with just my last name - five times in your first response and >about a dozen times altogether, whereas I have addressed you (2nd person) once in that >manner, and referred to you (3rd person) twice, conscientiously trying to avoid the >insult of a misspelling.

    Looks like you forgot about this statement in your post SEPTEMBER 07, 2006 3:58:20 PM:

    «Again, Ugly Voice's interpretation of Arad's words, not Muelenkamp's, has to be the correct one.»

    This was what I was referring to. And misspelling was not what I was talking about.

    >Actually on an impersonal blog like this it doesn't make any difference to me whether >I'm called Mr., Herr (in jest), Richard, or Brodie.

    It may be Richard, then, and Roberto for you. Unless, of course, you are the Ugly Voice fellow, in which case we should keep it as it is.

    >So Mr. Muehlenkamp, I'll end by giving you a little piece of ammunition with which you >may wish to try and demolish my ramp theory:
    >Menck & Hambrock

    Thanks, but I think I already took care of that.

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  19. Hi robert:I'm not going to lie, to you, i've only heard 2 treblinka witness burial space details:one by E. rosenburg and the other by Y. wiernik. Wiernik describes the graves as being 50x25x10 meters and i forgot about e. rosenburg. So could u plz as a favor tell me all the witness accounts that describe in detail about burial space, or provide links? Thank you in advance.

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  20. >Anonymous said...
    >Hi robert:I'm not going to lie, to you, i've only heard 2 treblinka witness burial space details:one >by E. rosenburg and the other by Y. wiernik. Wiernik describes the graves as being 50x25x10 >meters and i forgot about e. rosenburg. So could u plz as a favor tell me all the witness >accounts that describe in detail about burial space, or provide links? Thank you in advance.

    I suggest you do your own research, if the subject interests you. Feel free to report on the results.

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  21. I'm also curious, Mr. Brodie. Is yours the "Ugly Voice"?

    a.m.

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  22. I'm also curious, Mr. Brodie. Is yours the "Ugly Voice"?

    Sorry to disappoint you, Andrew and Roberto, as I'm sure you were hoping to have solved the mystery of UV's identity. I am not him.

    Actually I was going to suggest to Roberto that he check out my Tales page so that he could hear the difference; but he beat me to it. His theory about UV's voice being mine in slow motion is false. And for anyone who does not possess a sense of hearing sufficiently acute to be able to know that, I would suggest doing a voice print analysis.

    I first learned of the video a week ago from the following article on the National Vanguard news site:

    http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=10003

    Tell me, do you refer to the producer as "Ugly Voice" in a symbolic sense, because you find his treatment of the subject matter ugly; or in a literal, acoustic sense? If the latter, I'd be interested in what your criteria are for voice aesthetics - unless it is just kind of a subjective: "I somehow find his voice to be disagreeable."

    I wonder, if he had a mellifluous voice and had actually made an appearance in the video, but was a little "challenged" in the looks department, would you guys now be referring to him as "Ugly Face"?

    But to get back on topic, I don't see any point in continuing to endlessly rehash our respective positions. You, Roberto, have presented your case and I've presented mine, as far as how we regard the likelihood of some of the salient facts of the Holocaust.

    As in all cases where there is disagreement over historical events, there is probably some truth on both sides - at least I am willing to admit that, although I somehow doubt that you would be.

    On the one hand there were undoubtedly atrocities committed by some in the German Army - there are always those types in a time of war. On the other hand, there were likely to have been Jews who falsified their testimony, justifying exagerations, etc. as a way to get revenge on those who had uprooted their lives. And of course Zionists, hoping to enlist sympathetic world opinion in favor of allowing them to dispossess the Palestinians, would also have had a strong motivation for portraying the plight of the Jews under Hitler as being significantly worse than it was.

    The thing that I find most abhorrent about the current state of affairs surrounding the Holocaust, is the way Jews the world over seek to enlist the power of government to stifle any inquiry into what actually happened, by punishing any public mention of the same, that casts doubt on an official orthodox position. Such a policy only makes people wonder: "What are they afraid might be revealed?"

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  23. >I'm also curious, Mr. Brodie. Is yours the "Ugly Voice"?

    >Sorry to disappoint you, Andrew and Roberto, as I'm sure you were >hoping to have solved the mystery of UV's identity. I am not him.

    Bad for the Ugly Voice, who will keep on being called the Ugly Voice. I don’t know what my fellow contributors think, but for me the fellow’s identity only became interesting when the possibility arose that it might be the illustrious Mr. Richard Brodie, who I remember from my early discussions on what is now the Axis History Forum, back in 2000.

    >Actually I was going to suggest to Roberto that he check out my Tales >page so that he could hear the difference; but he beat me to it. His theory >about UV's voice being mine in slow motion is false. And for anyone who >does not possess a sense of hearing sufficiently acute to be able to know >that, I would suggest doing a voice print analysis.

    That’s not necessary as far as I’m concerned. I take your word for it. Don’t disappoint me.

    >I first learned of the video a week ago from the following article on the >National Vanguard news site:

    >http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=10003

    «We can have a clean, orderly, progressive, safe, and incomparably richer and more beautiful nation if it becomes a proud White nation again. To do that we must begin by restoring White community and White racial consciousness among our people.» http://www.nationalvanguard.org/nv/
    Is that one of your favorite sites, Richard?

    >Tell me, do you refer to the producer as "Ugly Voice" in a symbolic sense, >because you find his treatment of the subject matter ugly; or in a literal, >acoustic sense? If the latter, I'd be interested in what your criteria are for >voice aesthetics - unless it is just kind of a subjective: "I somehow find his >voice to be disagreeable."

    Speaking for myself, it’s the pedantic schoolteacher’s tone, which I guess is supposed to sound “scientific” or something. Anyway, you shouldn’t take the expression as more than what it is, a handy term to refer to the fellow and at the same time express our contempt for him.

    >I wonder, if he had a mellifluous voice and had actually made an >appearance in the video, but was a little "challenged" in the looks >department, would you guys now be referring to him as "Ugly Face"?

    No, no one can help his looks. But that pedantic schoolteacher’s tone reinforces the asshole image of a fellow who tells lies and promulgates hate-speech, like Mr. Ugly Voice does.

    >But to get back on topic, I don't see any point in continuing to endlessly >rehash our respective positions. You, Roberto, have presented your case >and I've presented mine, as far as how we regard the likelihood of some >of the salient facts of the Holocaust.

    >As in all cases where there is disagreement over historical events, there is >probably some truth on both sides - at least I am willing to admit that, >although I somehow doubt that you would be.

    No, we don’t have two “sides” with equally valid arguments here, as you claim. My case is based on sufficient evidence and reasonable arguments, yours on unreasonable conjectures at odds with the evidence (which actually means you have no case). I’m interested in reconstructing and documenting historical facts as accurately as possible, you are pursuing an ideological agenda to which these facts are inconvenient. My position deserves respect, yours does not.

    >On the one hand there were undoubtedly atrocities committed by some >in the German Army - there are always those types in a time of war.

    We’re not talking about wartime atrocities here, and we’re not talking about the German Army either. We’re talking about a state’s policy of organized and systematic mass murder, carried out against defenseless people under cover of wartime conditions by dedicated and experienced killers handpicked for this purpose (most of the German AR staff, as you have probably read, had been previously involved in the mass murder of physically and/or mentally handicapped people in German mental health institutions, the so-called “euthanasia” program).

    >On the other hand, there were likely to have been Jews who falsified their >testimony, justifying exagerations, etc. as a way to get revenge on those >who had uprooted their lives.

    The likeliness of such false testimonies is not greater than that of false testimonies about a crime in general, and the testimonies in question may suffer from one or the other mistake or exaggeration but are essentially accurate, because they are corroborated by other evidence independent of them, namely depositions of accused perpetrators, mostly before West German criminal justice authorities, documents proving that so-and-so many people were deported to the AR camps and that these camps were the final destinations to such deportations, further documentary evidence pointing towards mass killing at these camps (like the Wehrmacht commander’s complaint about the stench of the corpses, mentioned in my previous post), the absence of any evidence whatsoever to these people having been taken any further after they arrived at these camps and the absence of any posterior demographic traces of these people. There is also no contradiction between this record of evidence and the physical possibility of mass killing on the documented scale or the physical traces thereof.

    >And of course Zionists, hoping to enlist sympathetic world opinion in >favor of allowing them to dispossess the Palestinians, would also have >had a strong motivation for portraying the plight of the Jews under >Hitler as being significantly worse than it was.

    That’s the “cui bono” fallacy mentioned in the overview of conspiraloon theories that I showed you before: implying that some sinister entity manipulated the evidence on grounds of nothing other than that sinister entity’s supposed interest in doing so, notwithstanding the utter improbability of manipulations on such a gigantic scale (I gave you examples of what this sinister conspiracy would have had to accomplish in what concerns the historical record of the Nazi genocide of the Jews) and the absence of even the slightest evidence suggesting that any such manipulations were carried out. I quote from http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html :
    «4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

    5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.»

    To be sure, you didn’t use stock phrases in your claim, Richard. You paraphrased them.

    >The thing that I find most abhorrent about the current state of affairs >surrounding the Holocaust, is the way Jews the world over seek to enlist >the power of government to stifle any inquiry into what actually >happened, by punishing any public mention of the same, that casts doubt >on an official orthodox position. Such a policy only makes people >wonder: "What are they afraid might be revealed?"

    Sorry, Richard, but that’s absolute nonsense.
    First of all, the Nazi genocide of the Jews has been subjected to at least the same level of historical and judicial inquiry as any other event in human history. If you disagree, please tell us just what kind of inquiry you would like to see, what rules or standards of criminal investigation or historical research your wishes are based on and what mass crimes throughout human history have ever been subject to such inquiry.
    Second, there’s no such thing as an “official orthodox position” when it comes to historical facts. There is a historical record based on the judicial and academic assessment of the known evidence, which is subject to revision only insofar as warranted by hitherto unknown evidence.
    Third, I dare say that, where certain states prosecute the denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews as a crime of incitation to hatred, “the Jews” (quote marks because Jews are as much or as little a monolithic entity as any other ethnic or religious group) have little if anything to do with that. The reason for such laws is far more likely to be the concern that governments have about discontented segments of their populations being taken in by such hate speech and this leading to attacks on minorities and other disturbances of the public order. In Germany, for instance, the respective provision of the Criminal Code is part of the stipulations regarding incitation of popular hatred, which is located in that code’s section about crimes against the public order. I don’t think this is a coincidence.
    Fourth, while I am against such laws, because I think no one should be prosecuted for talking shit and also because they give hate propagandists a pretext to portray themselves as martyrs, I don’t think these laws, where existing, stifle anyone’s research, not even the “research” of fanatics interested not in the historical facts but in their ideological agenda. What they stifle is merely the public divulgation of hate propaganda that is presented as the result of such “research”.

    To sum it up, Richard, you are seeing ghosts. I won’t tell you to try to get rid of them because that might go into the realm of philosophy, which I’m not interested in. This is about facts alone.

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  24. "Tell me, do you refer to the producer as "Ugly Voice" in a symbolic sense, because you find his treatment of the subject matter ugly; or in a literal, acoustic sense?"

    Let me reply as an originator of this moniker: both.

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  25. Roberto, in previous analyses of UV it was argued that we shouldn't think that in the past people always had the best and most logical solution at hand and mistakes were made (like leaving behind chlidren's shoes in the field of Treblinka). The same applies to how efficiently can you fill a given space with corpses. Any ideal calculation that you are making is simply as unrealistic as UV's calculations. Certainly the poor Jews in the sonderkommando, under continuous physical and psychological pressure would not be able to place the dead bodies in your ideal arrangement with maximum efficiency. Since we don't know the average size of the bodies, any speculation is pointless. The possible conclusion that at one death camp fewer people were killed, is almost equally pointless.

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