Thursday, April 14, 2011

Jewish Laws on Mass Graves

On the Incoherent History blog, Wilfried Heink writes this about Jamlitz:
Jewish burial laws/concerns? Not true either: In 2010 a whole area of the former Sachsenhausen sub-camp Lieberose near Jamlitz was dug up, looking for the graves of 753 Jews allegedly murdered there. A Rabbi was present, giving his blessings to the excavations. The whole site was turned upside-down, no regards for any burial laws, but nothing found.
However, a search of the original newspaper reports prior to the excavation reveals this information:
Once the remains are found and reburied according to Orthodox Jewish ritual, a memorial site will be established, according to Brandenburg Interior Minister Joerg Schoenbohm.
It therefore follows that Mr Heink has erected a Straw Man. In reality, Jewish law permits the reburial of human remains in certain very limited circumstances, which are open to interpretation and dispute among religious authorities (see here and here). Moreover, reburial is not an option at the Aktion Reinhard sites because remains there were cremated and the remaining bones after the cremation were pummeled by an ash crew.

Furthermore, whilst Heink is correct that no remains were found in 2009, he omits the fact (stated in his own source) that 589 bodies had been located nearby in 1958 and 1971.

6 comments:

  1. Could you please please please investigate this blog?

    https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/

    They run a website that masquerades as a historical site with no mention of holocaust denial. The main website is http://www.scrapbookpages.com/index.html but the blog is disgusting denialist. He seems to parade history correctly butt then throws in ridiculous statements such as:

    "Recently, a student e-mailed me to ask me why the survivors of Auschwitz looked so healthy. The only reason that I can think of is that they had a healthy diet consisting mainly of whole grain bread and a soup made of vegetables with very little meat. The prisoners might have been craving a corned beef sandwich on white bread, but they were not starved to death. The Red Cross sent packages with oranges and chocolate. "

    I hope you can post about this or reveal his actions further in some way. He also mentions being a teacher and openly telling students lies about the Holocaust and furthering is denialist views. His blog is exceedingly dangerous because he posts so much and mixes in fact with fiction. He sprinkles in common denialist arguments such as "Hitler never knew" and "there was no gas chamber at X".

    I'd just really like to see this site called out for what it really is.

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  2. I must also say that many legitimate Holocaust History sites use pictures and information from Scrapbookpages. If the people who run the site are denialists, I feel there is danger in this.

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  3. Hi, Joufy. We have been aware for some time that this site's webmaster (who is female) often makes very dubious statements about the Holocaust. I would simply say that her site must be treated with extreme caution.

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  5. "They run a website that masquerades as a historical site with no mention of holocaust denial"

    Joufy, you're not alone, I agree with what you quoted and I yet had seen something 'strange' on this site (that thing you mentioned before).

    There's something similar in a website called "Come and Hear" with a 'supposed translation' of the Talmud, but in fact it's an antisemite website, with pages containing anti-semitic propaganda and a mistranslation of the Talmud with forged passages highlighted against Christians to promote hatred against Jews.

    These are just some rogue devices, among many, used by the Holocaust deniers/neo-nazis for doing anti-semitic propaganda and apology for nazism.

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  6. We have been aware for some time that this site's webmaster (who is female) often makes very dubious statements about the Holocaust. I would simply say that her site must be treated with extreme caution.

    What's the name of that lady? Is it it publicly stated somewhere?

    ReplyDelete

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