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Monday, March 11, 2013

42,500 Camps and Ghettos

While the huge research effort led by USHMM researchers Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean deserves much respect, the same does not apply to the way their finds are being announced, especially in some of the English language press.
  


Related articles bear titles like "Holocaust Researchers Catalog 42,500 Nazi Ghettos, Camps; Numbers Are 'Unbelievable'" (The Huffington Post, 02.03.2013), "Full Scale of Holocaust Revealed: Researchers Discover 42,500 Camps and Ghettos" (The Algemeiner, 02.03.2013) and "The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking" (The New York Times, 1 March 2013).

What is it exactly that the "full scale" of has been "revealed"?

Not the Holocaust in its restricted sense as meaning the attempt of Nazi Germany to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Also not the Holocaust in any wider sense, encompassing both Jews and some or all of those victimized by Nazi Germany’s criminal policies and practices against non-Jewish non-combatants, which together claimed more deaths than the genocide of the Jews (see the blogs 5 million non-Jewish victims? (Part 2) and Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews and non-Jews). If anything has been revealed in its full scale, it is the types and respective numbers of coercive controlled enclosures – ghettoes and camps – in which the Nazis imprisoned people, forced them to work or into prostitution, mistreated, tortured or murdered them. Nothing less, and nothing more.

In what respect does the high number of camps and ghettos recorded by the USHMM researchers make the Holocaust (in its restricted sense or in a wider sense) more "shocking", as claimed by the NYT? Does it imply a higher number of victims than hitherto assumed? Asked this question in an interview with the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Megargee gave a clearly negative answer (my translation):
ZEIT ONLINE: Must the history of the Holocaust now be rewritten? Is it possible that more people perished than was known so far?

Megargee: I don't think that our work will materially change the assessment of the victims' number. This number was researched rather precisely by other means, for instance in demographic studies. What we are doing here changes our understanding of how the Holocaust happened.

Like the English-language articles mentioned before, Megargee’s interview with Die Zeit contributed little to making clear that he was using the term "Holocaust" in a wider sense (including non-Jewish victims of Nazi criminal policies) and that the inmate population of the coercive controlled enclosures recorded by his research team consisted mostly (not to say overwhelmingly) of non-Jews. More illuminating in this respect is an article by Bernhard Schulz dated 3 March 2013 on the website of the German newspaper Tagesspiegel (my translation):
In detail there were counted 980 concentration camps, 30,000 labor camps including their often numerous dependencies, 1,150 Jewish ghettos, 1,000 prisoner of war camps and no less than 500 forced brothels. For Berlin alone there was established a number of 3,000 forced labor camps and so-called "Jewish houses", in which Jews were accommodated after having been expelled from their apartments and kept captive for the later transport to concentration camps.

The latter number, however, also shows the problems of adding all numbers across the board. Purpose and dimension of the camps differ considerably. It doesn’t make much sense to, for instance, put a labor camp together with the Warsaw Ghetto. Also it must be taken into account that not all 42,500 camps existed at the same time. Thus the "wild" concentration camps in the early times of the NS regime were mostly dissolved until 1934.

The enormous number, however, makes clear one thing, in the words of project leader Martin Dean: "One could literally go nowhere in Germany without encountering forced labor camps or concentration camps. They were everywhere." Insofar the museum's research corroborates what has meanwhile been proven by numerous accounts from contemporary witnesses, i.e. that knowledge of the Nazis' terror and extermination policies was general in the German Reich. And not only towards Jews, but also for instance towards the 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war. The forced laborers working everywhere, up to twelve million in total from all over Europa, were a sight known to everybody anyway.

3.3 million was the number of Soviet prisoners of war captured by Nazi Germany in 1941. Until the spring of 1942, about 2 million of these prisoners had been killed by their captors or had perished in German camps, mostly of starvation and exposure (Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945, Bonn 1997, pp. 128-137; see also the blog Scrapbookpages on Subhuman Cannibalism and the texts transcribed or translated in the HC forum’s thread The Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War). 3.3 million was also the total number of Soviet prisoners of war who perished in German captivity throughout the war, according to Streit – 57.8 % of a total of 5.7 million prisoners taken. The overwhelming majority of these prisoners of war were non-Jews.

Schulz mentions up to 12 million forced laborers. By far the majority of these were civilians, and the civilians in turn were almost wholly non-Jews. For the summer of 1944 alone, the page Nazi Forced Labor of the website Forced Labor 1939-1945 mentions "six million civilian laborers, two million prisoners of war and over half a million concentration camp prisoners" who were "forced to work in the German Reich". According to German historian Dieter Pohl (Verfolgung und Massenmord in der NS-Zeit 1933-1945, p. 61) there were as many as 13.5 million forced laborers, a number that is also mentioned at the side of an interactive map on the aforementioned website, though the subtotals by country add up to only 13,020,000. Megargee and Dean, according to the aforementioned NYT article, "estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified".

The high number of camps and other coercive controlled enclosures being expected to have little or no impact on calculations or estimates of the number of victims, as pointed out by Megargee in his interview by Die Zeit, what makes this number such a "sensation", to use Megargee’s term? Do the mass killings performed in some camps, and the suffering and dying of camp inmates and ghetto occupants, appear in a more sinister light because the number of camps and ghettos turned out to be much higher than was hitherto known? The NYT tries to make this case by pointing out the case of Henry Greenbaum, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who "had been enslaved in five camps in five years, and was on his way to a sixth, when American soldiers freed him in 1945". One is tempted to ask: And so? Would Mr. Greenbaum have suffered less, would his experience had been less appalling, if he had spent those five years in "only" one or two camps?

Another argument invoked to point out the importance of the USHMM researchers’ finds is that these finds leave no doubt "that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time", according to Martin Dean, who is furthermore quoted in the NYT article with the statement that "You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps". Dean’s assessment is echoed by German historian Michael Wildt, who is quoted in an article by Amory Burchard and Tilmann Warnecke, published on 05.03.2013 on the Tagesspiegel website with the following statement (my translation): "Whoever lived in Germany in the years from 1942 until the end of the war could not overlook especially the forced laborers and the camps in which they had to live".

Yet it is rather doubtful whether the USHMM study contributed any new knowledge in this respect. For about 30,000 of the 42,500 coercive controlled enclosures throughout Europe established by the USHMM researchers – three in four – were forced labor camps, and it was known already before this study to what extent German citizens were aware of the presence of forced laborers amongst them. If anything, the number of forced labor camps established corroborates what has already been proven by the numerous accounts from contemporary witnesses mentioned in Schulz’s Tagesspiegel article, and was also inevitable in view of the enormous number of forced laborers on which the German war industry depended, forced laborers who, as Schulz put it, "were a sight known to everybody" in Germany. Does this mean that German civilians were equally aware of Nazi policies more sinister than forced labor, especially the systematic mass murder of Jews? Hardly so, as pointed out by German historian Mark Spoerer, quoted in the aforementioned Tagespiegel article by Burchard and Warnecke (my translation):
Mark Spoerer, Professor for Economic and Social History at Regensburg University, warns against concluding from the large number on the "knowledge about the Holocaust", the murder of millions of European Jews: "Prisoner of war camps with 100 Frenchmen, from which forced laborers were taken each morning, were see by the population as due to wartime circumstances". Spoerer points out that, despite the often inhuman living conditions of forced laborers, such camps were something entirely different than the system of concentration and extermination camps.

Spoerer’s above-quoted statements lead to yet another concern, also mentioned in Schulz’s article: what’s the point of adding "across the board" places whose size and purpose was entirely different, and which accordingly also differed considerably in what concerns their death toll and the horrors experienced by their surviving occupants? What’s the point of mentioning small labor camps alongside places like the Warsaw ghetto, the Treblinka extermination camp or the murderous POW camps in Belorussia listed by German historian Christian Gerlach (see the translated excerpts from Gerlach’s book Kalkulierte Morde)? POW camps like the ones at Lesnaja near Baranovichi, at Minsk, at Vitebsk or at Darnitsa in the Kiev area more than fulfill Megargee’s criterion of places "at which someone was persecuted, forced to work, tortured, imprisoned or murdered", but does this apply to all of the about 1,000 prisoner of war camps counted by Megargee, Dean et al, or to all parts of POW camps that held prisoners of various nationalities? British and American prisoners of war were essentially treated in accordance with the rules of the 1929 Geneva Convention, which is why their mortality rate, as pointed out by Streit, was minimal in comparison with that of Soviet POWs. Should a prisoner of war camp or section thereof run in accordance with the Geneva Convention be considered a site of imprisonment alongside a concentration camp, one of the aforementioned camps for Soviet POWs or even an extermination camp?

I hope that Megargee, Dean et al have made or will make the necessary distinctions in their published or upcoming books, lest the results of their hard work be diluted by bunching up places of utmost horror with others that were considerably less terrifying, or even with places that shouldn’t be considered sinister at all under the circumstances of the time (namely POW camps or sections thereof where British or American prisoners of war were held in compliance with international conventions about the treatment of such prisoners).

Another concern, related not only to the way the USHMM study is being divulged by the media but also to the study itself, is that the focus on camps and ghettos in the study and as a consequence thereof may obfuscate the fact that a large proportion of Nazi genocide and mass murder occurred outside such coercive controlled enclosures. This applies, for instance, to the Siege of Leningrad, which I (in accordance with Jörg Ganzenmüller, and unlike Dieter Pohl) consider a genocidal rather than a legitimate military undertaking, as its purpose was to depopulate the city rather than force it’s surrender. It also applies to the selective hunger policy, applied mainly against the inhabitants of Soviet cities in occupied territory, which according to Pohl may have claimed far over a million lives. Most of the civilians murdered in the course of anti-partisan operations (about half a million in the occupied Soviet territories alone) never got to see the inside of a camp, and the same applies to a significant part of the (by my estimate) about 1.9 million Jewish victims of mobile killing operations, like the victims of the Kamenets Podolsky and Babi Yar massacres. Ghettoized Jews who fell victim to mobile killing operations were mostly killed outside the ghettos they had lived in. And the extermination camps Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, as well as the dual-purpose camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, were hardly experienced as camps by the deportees killed immediately upon arrival without ever becoming camp inmates, who made up the overwhelming majority of the victims of the latter and all but a tiny minority of the victims of the former.

In fact it was not the most numerous camps, which together held the largest number of inmates, that claimed the largest number of fatal victims. Quite the contrary. According to Pohl (Verfolgung und Massenmord, page 61) the number of fatalities among (non-Jewish) civilian forced laborers from Poland and the Soviet Union was in excess of 150,000. The aforementioned map mentions 1,600,000 civilian forced laborers from Poland and 2,775,000 civilian forced laborers from the Soviet Union, besides 355,000 Czechs, 960,000 Italians, 375,000 Belgians, 475,000 Dutch, 1,050,000 Frenchmen and large numbers of Serbs (210,000 prisoners of war and civilian laborers), Croats (100,000 civilian laborers), Slovakians (100,000 civilian laborers), Danes (80,000 civilian laborers), Balts (75,000 civilian laborers), Hungarians (45,000 civilian laborers) and others (440,000 civilian laborers). Assuming that half the forced laborers from Serbia were civilians, there were a total of 8,535,000 civilians from all European countries forced to work for the German war effort (besides 4,485,000 prisoners of war, thereof 1,950,000 from the Soviet Union, 1,285,000 from France, 495,000 from Italy and 300,000 from Poland). Of the civilian forced laborers 4,450,000 were from Poland and the Soviet Union including the Baltic countries. The mortality rate among these forced laborers was about 3.37 %, if one considers Pohl’s above-mentioned figure of about 150,000 fatalities. High though this rate is, it bears no comparison to the mortality rate among Soviet POWs, which approached 60 %, let alone to places like the Bełżec extermination camp, where there were only three survivors (Pohl, Verfolgung und Massenmord, p. 95) from among 434,508 deportees. The death rate among forced laborers from western countries was even lower – Pohl (Verfolgung und Massenmord, p. 61) mentions 10-20,000 French and 8,500 Dutch civilian forced laborers who died working in the Reich (respectively 1.9 % maximum and 1.79 % of the total number of civilian forced laborers from these countries).

It seems safe to assume that the largest part of the 42,500 coercive controlled enclosures identified by Megargee, Dean et al claimed but a relatively small part of the deaths caused by the Nazi camp and ghetto system, whereas the large majority of deaths occurred in a relatively small part of these camps and ghettos – mainly the extermination camps, the dual-purpose concentration camps and POW camps for Soviet prisoners of war. The Nazi ghetto and camp system, in turn, accounted for only a part of the (according to my comparatively conservative estimates) about 12,495,000 to 13,265,000 mostly non-Jewish non-combatants killed by the criminal policies and practices of Nazi Germany and its European allies.

This further calls in question the relative importance of a USHMM research project that has been going on for 13 years, employs about 400 people and is meant to go on for another 12 years, if one considers that – as pointed out by Dieter Pohl – there are still no valid statistics about the total number of deaths that resulted from Nazi persecution and mass murder, with further laborious calculations being necessary to precisely establish this total. Would the money and time spent by the USHMM in identifying all coercive controlled enclosures of the Third Reich not have been better invested (at least from a historiography point of view) into a duly detailed documentation of the overall death toll of Nazi crimes?

55 comments:

  1. Roberto Muehlenkamp does the damage control at his hate blog. How unexpected.

    FRANZ

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Frustrated "Franz" writes incoherent garbage, as usual.

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  4. What's incoherent 'bout my message? Are you sure you're simply not understanding it?

    Nice to hear you've been taken out, by the way:
    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/lab-chimps-step-outside/.

    FRANZ

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  5. More incoherent nonsense from frustrated "Franz", who apparently freaks out every time a blog is posted on this site:-)

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  6. Roberto failed to explain what's 'incoherent' about my message, then proceeds with self-deception and wishful-thinking in thinking that making a comment on his hate blog is 'freaking out'...

    That guy should be put in the sanatorium, again.

    FRANZ

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  7. BTW, this technically is a site, although it is a blog by Google.
    You're a damn fool if you believe that you're posting a "blog" each time you hit the post button on this hate blog.
    Do you really think you're posting "blogs"?

    Take the pills, Berta. And learn basic definitions you twerp!

    FRANZ

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  8. Poor frustrated self-projecting "Franz" goes on rambling.

    I laugh at his rambling. :-)

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  9. Yeah, why learn something when you can laugh.
    All you do is copy n' paste shit. When you actually say something devised by yourself it invariably comes out wrong 99% percent of the time. Sort of like a bad copying machine.

    Hey, why don't you post some more "blogs". Remember, "blogs" freak me out so much. Heck, as for me, I don't even know why I visit sites since there may be "blogs" posted by you in the sites.

    What a damn idiot.

    FRANZ

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  10. Of course. I won't let myself be stopped by a pathetic little man such as yourself, Boob boo.

    Seems like it's mostly you and that thick-idiot Harrison who posts hate here, or post blogs, if we're to use your thoroughly "twerpish" terminology.

    All we need now to complete the chimp-crew is the horrible blowfish, Andrew E. Mathis. But I guess, according to sources I have, he's far too busy stalking people who doesn't agree on his view of history.

    And Harrison...phew! All he does is post blather about 'anti-Semites' and even has the gall to call it a "brutality" to execute Jewish gunslingers with a bullet - when it is a known fact that those who stood for the brutality in and after WWII we're the Jews.

    What'll Roberto do when this Holocaust junk is blown away to pieces once and for all? Lecture people on how to best take medicine whilst promoting some absurd, unscientific hoax, preferably about his darling Jews?

    As I always say, you guys are laughable. Boobo has proven this himself in the commentary section of this blog entry.

    FRANZ

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  11. More invective-laden hot air from poor hysterical "Franz" brings to mind the famous words of Shakespeare's MacBeth (Act V., 5. Scene):

    «Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.»


    Reads like Shakespeare is describing one of "Franz"'s imbecilic rants. Especially the last two lines ... :-)

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  12. So...on the subject of self-projection — clearly, our resident chimp (or braindead, stuttering bear) "Boo Boo" is showing us generic usage of the term via himself.

    Don't you have "blogs" to post rather than exchange lines with me? Moron.

    FRANZ

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  13. By the way, my old friend, what's really funny with all of this is the fact that the only ones who take you seriously even for a smidgen of a brainfart are your various sockpuppets and paid boosters.

    That is what's truly laughable.

    FRANZ

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  15. Franz, it is you, the try-hard Nazi troll with your personal attacks and your senseless vitriolic diatribes who is truly laughable...can't you go spread your hate smear somewhere else or do something productive or does your ego make you keep coming back to have your weak soul bitch slapped by some real historians? You're a mindless tool from what I've read here.

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  16. If the term "historian" means a professional with a degree in history, it doesn't apply to me. I'm just an amateur researcher.

    What do you think of my article, Alan? Do you agree with my criticism of the USHMM study and/or the way it is being promoted, or do you take exception to all or some of it?

    I would also be interested in other serious readers' feedback.

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  17. Roberto, a historian? Now their stupid boosters try to boost degrees of these hate spreaders which they don't even hold.

    No pay for Rembach! You better boost these creeps in a more modest manner if you want to come across as somewhat convincing.

    "Tool" seems to be more appropriate when describing you, Mr. Rembach!

    You can safely remove Roberto's tool from your mouth now :)

    FRANZ

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  18. Not sure about Alan, but as for me, I mostly agree with your article. When I first saw Roberto Lucena posting it and read the contents, I pretty much understood that the title was a cheap attempt to gather traffic or sell headlines. It more or less confirms what most people already know: That the Nazis created a large system to systemically exploit, oppress and murder the people under their control.

    Of course, you pointed that out and expanded on it very well. Plus, you also raised a lot of other valid points. You pretty much voiced out a lot of ideas that I had trouble putting into words. Thanks for this.

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  19. On the plus side, the original news article does a great job in fishing out "Revisionist" ignorance and stupidity. One idiot suggested that Jews deported to the Reinhard camps probably ended up in these camps. Then, there's the straw manning over at RODOH. Good stuff.

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  20. It looks like Prof. Rick Houser's and Dr. Mary-Anna Domokos-Cheng Ham's 2004 assertion has been proven correct by this latest Holocaust relaunch:

    "Over 12,000,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis"

    http://tinyurl.com/bnmrd34

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  21. What an eloquent and thoughtful response Franz. Not. I'm just wondering what you think you're doing here? Except exposing yourself as "denier liar troll"!

    And Roberto, I do generally agree that the mainstream media description/interpretation/headlines of the updated findings could have been more appropriately deployed. I find most journalists who are not historians are VERY ignorant about the Shoah or WWII in general. So when they hear there is an update in the empirical research or they get a glimpse of the true horror and scale of this time, the only nomenclature they can come up with is to us, somewhat sensationalist. Great blog! Keep up the good work.

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  22. «It looks like Prof. Rick Houser's and Dr. Mary-Anna Domokos-Cheng Ham's 2004 assertion has been proven correct by this latest Holocaust relaunch:

    "Over 12,000,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis"

    http://tinyurl.com/bnmrd34»

    You didn't read my article, did you rabbit?

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  23. Alan Rembach:

    What I'm doing here? Well, I am speaking my mind, obviously. I know you're just itching to take away that right for me - being the creep you are.

    What you're doing here is quite obvious as well, my dear booster. However, the boosting you were trying to do here earlier didn't really pass the test - even an embarrassed Roboero had to chip in to make things clear; he's only doing this shit because it's his hobby, and nobody seems to want his "lawyer"-services, so he spouts his hatred against Germans and his unmitigated love of the jews on this blog and on assorted forums.

    Dumbass Lembach boosts another dumbass. What a demonstration of dumbness.

    FRANZ

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  24. Franz, you have once again displayed to us exactly how immature you are. Are you 14 years old, does your mum know you're on the internet by yourself? You say you would like to speak your mind here, but calling fellow posters names is something I have not come across in an intellectual debate. Focusing in on non-technical terminology used by other posters simply highlights your inferiority complex. If that's the best you can do, I feel sorry for you. You're pathetic, and it's no wonder we have struck such a nerve and made you feel so irrelevant. And Roberto's clarification was simply not to give you trolls ammunition. I personally don't think you need a PhD or degree to be called a "historian", and this blog is an excellent, empirical and objective place of learning, and you are simply a pest with nothing better to do but try and troll us...come up with one respectable argument and I'll be impressed, so far, all I have seen is personal attacks which are not relevant to the discussion. If we behaved this way on the denier blogs, you'd ban us...but here you're free to express your hump of hate...I hope it's cathartic for you because I get a real laugh out of your pathetic and unintelligent diatribes.

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  25. Hi,

    If I call you names that's because it's called for.

    You were a dumbass, Rembach, for boosting non-existent credentials to Roerberto. You complain about being called names - but called me a "nazi", "troll" and tool before I even mentioned your name.

    Where exactly have I ever uttered a thing which could be conceived as being "pro-Nazi"? Do enlighten me.
    I merely don't believe your holocaust 'n sassy gassy stories.

    In any instance in my initial comment here I merely made an observation, then it went on.
    Your "historian" really thinks he is posting "blogs" here, for example. Am I supposed not to comment on such display of chimpness? If it were the other way around we'd have the boosters, Roberto and Harrison all making fun of me: but I know my terminology and I'm not a dumbass like Roerbera.

    FRANZ

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  26. You're right I'm a hypocrite, I did indeed call you the names; nazi, troll, tool, but pro-NAZI was used in lei of Jew-hater troll.

    The NAZIs needed to cover up the Shoah, and you are their tool, whether you choose to be or not.

    These are adjectives.

    You think that by using terms like "sassy gassy" you'll somehow debase factual history?

    You are delusional and your writing reeks a little bit of "craaa-aaazy". Why do you hate Jews so much? Have they disenfranchised you? Are they impure? Or does the fear that they secretly plot to enslave you actually seem like a logical and rational paranoid delusion?

    You sound awfully frustrated Franz.

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  27. Hey "Franz",

    I note that you have contributed nothing but foul hot air to the comments section of this blog.

    Which I personally wouldn't mind as I couldn't care less to what extent you make a fool of yourself and make "Revisionism" look like a cloud-cuckoo-land of hollow-headed loonies, but your imbecilic rants may put off people who might otherwise post serious and thoughtful comments in this section.

    Therefore, you have the following two options:

    1. Post comments that address the contents of the blog, instead of just bitching against your perceived adversaries (I'm not asking for intelligent comments as I know you are incapable of that, just make sure they are on topic);

    2. Get lost.

    Any further comments of yours that consist of mere foul hot air, like the ones you have posted so far, will be immediately deleted.

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  28. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  29. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  30. Roerberto writes:

    "Another concern, related not only to the way the USHMM study is being divulged by the media but also to the study itself, is that the focus on camps and ghettos in the study and as a consequence thereof may obfuscate the fact that a large proportion of Nazi genocide and mass murder occurred outside such coercive controlled enclosures."

    Question:

    Has Roberto actually read the complete study?

    FRANZ

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  32. I'm sorry Franz, you did indeed pick up a typo, well done, and for this I award you the grammar NAZI badge of honor. I don't have a lot of time to review my writing as I am busy with work. You should be proud of yourself though, for someone from Sweden you have an excellent command of the English language, although you seem to suffer from coprophagia. Maybe it's time for inward reflection, as your blood boils reading this, knowing that you have failed time after time to receive the acknowledgment you so desperately crave. But have no fear eventually, you will get all the attention you deserve. Go back and hide in your closet or behind your multiple pseudonyms just in case your true identity is revealed, Mr Andersson.

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  33. I'm genuinely giddy when I see these people refer to me by "Andersson", a name which does not belong to this author. This ignorance conveyed by Rantbach certainly makes this author happy.

    There's a reason you're a "booster", Rantbach, because even Roerberta and his friends have learned that my name isn't "Andersson". They don't use this name any longer to refer to me because they have made such fools of themselves already -- for many years!

    So, Rantbach, you should catch up because it isn't a popular way to refer to myself by that name any longer.

    Now, as for this blog post: I asked Robaerto if he had read the study which he refers to, but he isn't responding...?
    He did manage to delete two comments, but failed to answer one simple question.

    FRANZ

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  34. Jonathan, you call yourself an author? Where have you published? Peer reviewed papers? A book? Who is your publisher? Are you writing your memoirs? Or perhaps outlining your new world doctrine in your version of "my struggle"? LOL!

    Why have you not answered my questions from before? It's easy for you to question Roberto, but you can't answer my simple questions; Why do you hate Jews so much? Have they disenfranchised you? Are they impure? Or does the fear that they secretly plot to enslave you actually seem like a logical and rational paranoid delusion? Be polite or else you will get another bitch slapping from Roberto....

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  35. I do much which you have no clue about, and an author does not necessarily equate to somebody writing an article, paper or book. An author can for example write code, too, or applications — and more, of course.
    What I do should be of no concern to you, Rantbach. The main thing is that I actually do something, albeit under pseudonyms, or via this name (admittedly not a lot under Franz).

    I also do translations, should it be of any interest to you. But mainly I do tasks related to coding.
    My representation at this blog does not reflect my serious work in any sense or way. I write in a humorous and somewhat relaxed manner at this blog for one simple reason: I do not take it seriously, nor do I take the authors of this blog seriously — Roberto is not the professional historian you tried to boost earlier, the man is just a failed lawyer who takes out his anger and lack of quaintnesses on the Germans by means of hateful denigration and outright fraud, just to please the jews. An absolute failure in every way.
    So what does that say about you, Rantbach? Boosting such a creep?

    Still, as I say, it amuses me and makes me somewhat giddy when you refer to me as "Andersson" - a name that does not belong to this author.
    And yes, like it or not: I am an author, translator, proofreader and editor. And a lot more, but I don't really feel like doing full disclosure to a lame booster such as yourself.

    As for your asinine obession with hatred of the jews...I don't even bother to concern myself with it.

    FRANZ

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  36. WOW! It looks like I really hit a nerve there Johnathan. I guess you're right, you don't need to publish to call yourself an author, and I guess typing code is a form of authorship, although only the CPU gets to read your work!! Isn’t it the same as someone who is knowledgeable in a particular field to be referred to as a historian...? but you claim this is not the case, yet we should allow you to call yourself an author? Double standards, failed author it seems.
    If find it strange that you heckle Roberto about the irrelevant question you asked him, but you will not answer my simple questions...why not? Can't be bothered? Maybe there is another reason. Will your revisionist overlords punish you for showing initiative?
    I sincerely hope I have not popped your thin veneer of an ego, but it looks like I got your pulse going though...have a nice night, enjoy your city, as it slowly turned into an Islamic fascist state.

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  37. Only the CPU reads code written by somebody? Oh dear.

    This Rantbach booster is not exactly bright.
    It's also funny the way this guy flatters himself thinking he hit a 'nerve'!

    And now I'm "Jonathan". Before that I'm "Andersson". Whew, the list of names I have must be a difficult to fit in one line, if one were to write the full signature on a document. J. M. J. F. G. O. Andersson, or something like that. I had to abbreviate the names too. Imagine that on a paper.

    You're silly, Ratbach, if you think you hit a nerve with this author. As a matter of fact, and this is from the heart: what you write is of very little concern for myself.
    Apparently your logic is that just because I reply it must mean I am upset, or that you hit a nerve, or that I give a hoot. That is your logic, and not mine.
    I reply just because at this moment I've nothing better to do, I'm in some deadlock with regard to a side project and mincing words with boosters and fraudulent "historians" (i.e the failed numbnut lawyer) is a good way to clear the mind for this author - I replenish myself in this manner.

    Mincing words, learning new OSes or evaluating new software can be replenishing for me. So as you've probably gathered by this time I don't really give it much thought, nor has anything you've written really been a concern for me.
    But as I say, it flatters me in some manner that you think so :]

    FRANZ

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  38. Jonathan Andersson. Got nothing better to do? Unemployed? Times are tough? Deadlock? Sounds like you stuffed something up. And a CPU doesn't read code? Really? Noob. HAHA! I certainly did hit a nerve, I can read it in the change in your tone, you're FURIOUS some kid from over the ocean can make you squirm like a worm. Answer my questions or GTFO. I have other revisionists to analyse.

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  39. No, times are actually excellent. Thanks for asking, Rembach!

    Times are tough for German haters and people who invest in superstitious beliefs such as this laughable "holocaust" junkstory.
    That's what's tough, Rebe.

    Ya, I did make a small error, but I'm fixing it. It's like the issue with you - it doesn't worry me very much because I know I'll solve it with ease.

    FRANZ

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  40. Infallible Jonathan Andersson made a mistake and admits it? Wow! You've grown up a lot during the last few posts. Hang in there, I'm sure you work out what's gone wrong with your code, just keep distracting yourself and someone will fix it for you. Things are going well? That's great. But somehow you're sitting there in your PJs with nothing to do...does not add up.

    Speaking of which when will you answer my questions? I'm getting board and disappointed you won't open up. I've finally found the one thing that really upsets you that you won't divulge. Think of it as therapy. Come on champ, tell me, why the hump of hate??

    It's a good time cash in on the assistance you're getting from the ultimate Jew haters, your dear Muslim friends. Must be fun watching them rustle up fellow Jew haters...but the purity thing must really get under your nose.

    I'm not a German hater, AT ALL! esp after being in Berlin recently and seeing and hearing how desperately ashamed most Germans are that they killed so many European Jews, esp now they're infected with Islamofascists.

    Answer my questions or go to bed.

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  41. Man, what a nutroll. You can shove your obsession with the Jews where it belongs, my lame booster.

    You exhibit similar behaviour as Roberto - that man also thinks that when he writes something the other party will somehow be triggered by his paragraph, or block of text. But as I say, this interaction merely replenishes my energy, and they say a good laugh lengthens life. Well, I'll probably live for a very long time if I continue reading your boostery because they generate some laugther (truthfully), and some minor musings. That is the only effect you have on this author.
    As I say, I couldn't care less about your jews and your obsession with them - specifically your stupid claims of "jew hatred" and other nonsense.
    Harrison also sees jew haters in every corner and under his bed. Seriously, that cannot be healthy.

    I told a friend of yours in 2005, or whatever it was, to seek help, and if you have such vivid obsession with people not loving jews, I suggest you seek some sort of professional help.
    We cannot all love your darling jews, see? But just because we don't love them, doesn't mean we hate 'em ;-)

    It's simple like that, you know.

    Back to topic: has Roerbero read this study which he refers to in his blog post?

    FRANZ

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  42. oh oh, made you angry huh? LOL, just calm down, no need to raise your tone with me.

    Just answer my questions or I'll just assume your inferiority complex has made you obsessed with trying to defame the Jewish community. Funny how you refer to them a my Jews...what am I Mosses?

    Seriously, why all the Shoah denial? What happened to you? Was it your Daddy or Mummy that made you so poisonous? Or do you have sibling rivalry that made you such a troll? What part of the Shoah do you disagree with? Please do tell....

    I'm interested to know why all the Jew bashing...What have "the Jews" done to you? Esp the ones who were murdered or the ones who lost everything but survived the Shoah? Did you lose your job to a Jew? Is your boss a Jew? Did a Jew steal your girlfriend? Or kill your puppy? Tell me why hate Jews? and spread lies about the Shoah. What does the acceptance of the fact of the Shoah do, to motivate you this way?

    Please without calling me names, rationally and clearly outline your stance...this is an opportunity to be listened to.

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  43. Roberto, a survivor once told me that the worst elements of the Shoah will never be documented or known, and I think this is correct. Despite the new information about the complexity of the "42,500 Camps and Ghettos", I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg and that a lot of suffering and death went on in the periphery.

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  44. Telling you to shove your obsession with the Jews where it belongs is hardly being angry, nor is it raising the tone.
    I'm merely telling you that you seem to have a sick obsession with the Jews, and, that as for myself, I don't concern myself with it very much.
    The Jew really thinks way to highly of himself if he believes I concern myself with that issue so much more than I actually do. That issue is only a drop in the ocean compared to other, far more important, and way more interesting issues which I partake in on a regular basis.

    This Rantbach think one must have been through some special episode for not staking a belief in his Holy Toa - oh the holy Shoah must at all costs be upheld and none can be made to disbelieve it, because in his world that must mean the person went through something in life that caused him to inexplicably "deny" his junkstory.
    This is just as laughable as hearing one of those old lying eyewitnesses spout their vengeful hate towards the Germans, about wholly untrue claims regarding miraculously surviving "gassings" in non-existant "gas chambers", or other sick inventions.
    But of course Rembrandt revere such scum and probably jerk off to them before bed too.

    Just face it, there's people who don't share your belief, and this does not make them haters of anything.

    FRANZ

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  45. Did you wake up drunk Jon? That was a very poor attempt to counter my argument. You have nothing on today? Still deadlocked? Frustrating huh!?
    Funny how you refer “my Jews” and “the Jew”…It's ironic, your forked tongue reveals your anti-Semitism as you get sloppier and sloppier, I saw many typos and errors. You also contradicted yourself in your own reply. How pathetic and lame, you certainly are not a worthy adversary.
    BUT…you did say “must mean the person went through something in life that caused him to inexplicably "deny" his junkstory.” GOOD Jon, GOOD! This is great, go on… what happened to you? What did you go through? To make you, at such a young age, such an angry, vile and disgusting example of the worst side of the human race? You don’t have a girlfriend and you certainly don’t like fluffy pets do you? Coder? Sound riveting…
    Anyway, I’m grateful for you letting your guard down today…finally, a glimpse of the hump of hate beneath. The jealousy and rage rises - as you realise that now and for all time, the Jews, all Jews present and future everywhere will be untouchable, because of the abhorrent crimes of the Third Reich and because of the strength, right and MIGHT of Israel! This is the very cut you can't handle, the thought you lost and can't ever win. It's frustration, you're feeling. FRUSTRATED JON! Listen to your words;
    "This is just as laughable as hearing one of those old lying eyewitnesses spout their vengeful hate towards the Germans, about wholly untrue claims regarding miraculously surviving "gassings" in non-existant "gas chambers", or other sick inventions." (SPELLING JON! This blog is in English!!)
    DENIAL! Based on what? Something your Dad told you? Something you read? You REALLY think an instantaneous conspiracy, with tonnes of confirmatory evidence suddenly popped into existence, and the Germans were just trying the help Jews be better famers? – You’re a denialist for what? Because a small middle Eastern state was born? You're too young, and inexperienced to even understand. You're an ignorant little 'coder' try hard leet nerd, who's played with some big boy hackers, to do nothing but be vandals and anarchists...what do YOU know about HISTORY? Or science? About the biochemistry of carbon monoxide asphyxiation and the mode of action of Zyclon on the electron transport chain?
    Name three testimonies that you’ve read, that you have issues with…. I bet you can’t. FRUSTRATING :P

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  46. No, I wake up around 7'o clock every day as per routine, and I don't drink (except on very, very rare occasions).
    Why thank you - yes, I did manage to solve my so-called "deadlock" earlier in the morning and now the issue is no longer valid because it now works perfectly. I am very happy with it, actually. If you really want to know I'm working together with another team of coders on custom cacher for retrieving and storing cache via API calls (etc) and this is now working really well, I use it in conjunction with Codespanker cachee, so if nothing exists in local cache, it retrieves it from Codespanker.
    https://github.com/pippercameron/codespanker-cache/issues/1

    I can see that my response riled up Rembrandt really much - he must pray extra, extra hard to his scum Holocaust Gods tonight. Don't sweat it, Rentbranch, you're free to believe in those stories. I'm not here to stop you from doing it. And in the future when your belief has been fully dismantled, you're still free to believe in that unscientific, nonsensical B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T; I am not going to gas you, see?
    But please don't force your shitty belief upon me because I have already been a believer and have no desire to come back for more!

    I bid you goodbye.

    FRANZ

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  47. «Roerberto writes:

    "Another concern, related not only to the way the USHMM study is being divulged by the media but also to the study itself, is that the focus on camps and ghettos in the study and as a consequence thereof may obfuscate the fact that a large proportion of Nazi genocide and mass murder occurred outside such coercive controlled enclosures."

    Question:

    Has Roberto actually read the complete study?

    FRANZ»

    Why, "Franz" finally posted an on-topic comment/question. Bravo, "Franz"!

    No, I couldn't possibly have read the complete study even if I had tried, for the complete study will only be published over the next 12 years, if I understood correctly.

    Right now, as you may see here, only two of the seven planned volumes have been published:

    Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)

    Volume II: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe

    I haven't ordered any of these volumes yet, among other things because they are quite expensive ($295.00 apiece).

    However, it is clear not only from the press articles I referred to but also from the USHMM's presentation page ("Published by Indiana University Press in association with the Museum, this encyclopedia will provide both scholars and a broader audience with a fundamental reference work on the history of the camps and ghettos and facilitate further research in the field.") that the study is about camps and ghettos and events in the context of camps and ghettos, not about events outside the context of camps and ghettos.

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  48. «Roberto, a survivor once told me that the worst elements of the Shoah will never be documented or known, and I think this is correct. Despite the new information about the complexity of the "42,500 Camps and Ghettos", I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg and that a lot of suffering and death went on in the periphery.»

    Definitely, and I guess that what I wrote in the blog's last paragraph expresses an expectation that is too high.

    Also, it should be clarified that the "bunching up" concern expressed by me and others applies to the press hype about the study, and arguably also to the way it is presented on the USHMM website, but not to the study itself. Each of the published and upcoming volumes obviously covers a certain complex of the ghetto and camp world, so there's little or no risk of "bunching up" camps of a very different nature (say, extermination camps, or particularly brutal concentration camps like Mauthausen, with comparatively benign camps for non-Jewish civilian forced laborers).

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  49. PS:
    Alan, please refrain from responding to "Franz"'s latest gibberish so I can enforce the ban on off-topic hot air, which I don't think our audience has much if any interest in.

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  50. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  51. Thanks Roberto,

    I'm still trying to get my head around the scale of the slave labour network and how that infrastructure was adapted into death factories.

    Now I have to work on my wife to let me purchase these volumes eventually. I have a huge Shoah library and I would love to one day have the time to sit down and read this.

    Looking back on the Shoah and distribution of camps, there's such a clear linear evolution of trial and error where the Germans experimented with slave labour. First “selecting” work gangs from civilians on the street, to then establishing more permanent sub-camps near the larger camps at the primary site of activity to make the process more efficient. It's amazing that in the early 40's Jewish slave labourers were even allowed to return home after a 'tour of duty', or receive mail, and in this way the Germans realised they could slowly enslave the Jews by starving the population making access to food (although calorically deficient) a deceptive intensive to make them work for the war effort. Only after Wannsee did the policy change from exploitation and expropriation to extermination (in the General Government at least) but by that point the slave industry was immense and spread right across the occupied territories.

    Have a lovely weekend.

    Alan

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  52. Nice, it has foreword by the Holocaust Clown Elie Wiesel. Anyone know how long this foreword is? Not that I'm going to purchase this. Almost three hundred bucks for a mere compendium of German concentration camps and ghettoes? Pluuueesee.
    What a racket.

    FRANZ

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