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I don't know why some people bother engaging the Holocaust deniers. All the evidence in the world is not going to stop them from telling you it's all fabricated. You're not going to convince them, so why bother trying? Instead, I think it's better to ignore them and keep the conversation limited to those who have studied the evidence and come to the inevitable conclusion that the Holocaust DID HAPPEN. We can certainly debate the specifics, i.e. who knew what and when, what the exact figures are, and whether the German population was complicit, etc., etc., but I think anyone who denies that the event itself took place should be ignored so that we can discuss more important aspects of the history of the Holocaust and debate aspects of it that have not been established as 100% fact.
I wont quote that monster post of yours NJgoat, but one example is not enough to refute what I said. I didnt imply anything devious in my post like you probably think I did, I simply meant that this was a major event in Jewish history that hits close to home for all American Jews. And that includes journalists and Hollywood writers, producers, and directors, professions in which Jews dominate. Its only natural for them to have an interest in the subject therefore even though its been almost 70 years it still comes up in articles and pop culture (movies, tv) quite a bit.
I don't know why some people bother engaging the Holocaust deniers. All the evidence in the world is not going to stop them from telling you it's all fabricated. You're not going to convince them, so why bother trying? Instead, I think it's better to ignore them and keep the conversation limited to those who have studied the evidence and come to the inevitable conclusion that the Holocaust DID HAPPEN. We can certainly debate the specifics, i.e. who knew what and when, what the exact figures are, and whether the German population was complicit, etc., etc., but I think anyone who denies that the event itself took place should be ignored so that we can discuss more important aspects of the history of the Holocaust and debate aspects of it that have not been established as 100% fact.
To blanketly ignore them means that you are giving their voice a place in the debate and providing them a platform to spread their views unchallenged. Don't think of it from the perspective of people engaged in this forum, but the casual observers. If all the posts by "Angorlee", "Snowball" and others were met with silence, a casual observer may take that to mean they are making a valid, unassailable point.
I wont quote that monster post of yours NJgoat, but one example is not enough to refute what I said. I didnt imply anything devious in my post like you probably think I did, I simply meant that this was a major event in Jewish history that hits close to home for all American Jews. And that includes journalists and Hollywood writers, producers, and directors, professions in which Jews dominate. Its only natural for them to have an interest in the subject therefore even though its been almost 70 years it still comes up in articles and pop culture (movies, tv) quite a bit.
You basically repeated the myth about how the Jews own all the media and news outlets, hence controlling the flow of information we all receive. They then use that to placate the "sheople" into supporting Israel and Jewish interests. If that's not the line of thought you were professing (which some toss around quite often), then I'm not sure exactly how else I was supposed to interpret your statement...
Quote:
It never seems to end because the victims of it now own every piece of media and entertainment we all consume.
Based on what you said there, I simply provided the name of the non-Jewish media mogul that just happens to control the second largest media company in the world.
The Holocaust was one of the most major events in the modern era and a topic of intense interest and fascination by many people. I don't know about you, but I read a lot of news stories, books, magazines and do watch quite a bit of TV. I don't see the Holocaust come up "quite a bit" as you imply it does. In fact, outside of a documentary, this forum and occasional news coverage over the death of a local survivor, I can't remember the last time I heard anything about the Holocaust in "pop culture".
I wont quote that monster post of yours NJgoat, but one example is not enough to refute what I said. I didnt imply anything devious in my post like you probably think I did, I simply meant that this was a major event in Jewish history that hits close to home for all American Jews. And that includes journalists and Hollywood writers, producers, and directors, professions in which Jews dominate. Its only natural for them to have an interest in the subject therefore even though its been almost 70 years it still comes up in articles and pop culture (movies, tv) quite a bit.
Actually, it is close to home for many human beings. It offends me as a human being.
I am hardly anti - German. I am 3/4s German. I had a Grandmother and great aunts who were fluent in German, made German foods and attended a German church. I am also a member of a church that was originally a German Lutheran Church. It actually still says that on the edifice. We still celebrate German festivals such as Fass Nacht and October Fest.
I plan to visit Berlin and Wittenburg next year, and I have been to Germany before, as a teenager.
Like General Dwight D. Eisenhower later President Eisenhower; another German American, I do not want the Holocaust to be revised or forgotten. I do not want it minimized or trivialized or explained away.
I fear that as survivors pass on, as they will inevitably in my life time, that this will happen or that Holocaust deniers will try to make this happen.
If we forget history, we are doomed to repeat it. I am not sure who said that, but I believe it to be true.
To blanketly ignore them means that you are giving their voice a place in the debate and providing them a platform to spread their views unchallenged. Don't think of it from the perspective of people engaged in this forum, but the casual observers. If all the posts by "Angorlee", "Snowball" and others were met with silence, a casual observer may take that to mean they are making a valid, unassailable point.
Personally, I just don't have the time or energy to debate people who are never going to be swayed, no matter what reams of evidence you present them with. If others wish to do it, more power to them, but I think ignoring people is the best way of marginalizing their beliefs. Engaging them just gives them a platform to continue spewing their nonsense.
You basically repeated the myth about how the Jews own all the media and news outlets, hence controlling the flow of information we all receive. They then use that to placate the "sheople" into supporting Israel and Jewish interests. If that's not the line of thought you were professing (which some toss around quite often), then I'm not sure exactly how else I was supposed to interpret your statement...
Based on what you said there, I simply provided the name of the non-Jewish media mogul that just happens to control the second largest media company in the world.
The Holocaust was one of the most major events in the modern era and a topic of intense interest and fascination by many people. I don't know about you, but I read a lot of news stories, books, magazines and do watch quite a bit of TV. I don't see the Holocaust come up "quite a bit" as you imply it does. In fact, outside of a documentary, this forum and occasional news coverage over the death of a local survivor, I can't remember the last time I heard anything about the Holocaust in "pop culture".
Well I guess you and I arent watching and reading the same things then.
Personally, I just don't have the time or energy to debate people who are never going to be swayed, no matter what reams of evidence you present them with. If others wish to do it, more power to them, but I think ignoring people is the best way of marginalizing their beliefs. Engaging them just gives them a platform to continue spewing their nonsense.
Well the downside to that is that you grant them an unchallenged public platform that leaves otherwise honest but ignorant people vulnerable to their nonsense thus further spreading the contagion of their malformed thoughts. But I do sympathize with your position.
You are aware, as was basically the topic of the OP, that camps like Auschwitz were not singular camps, but instead made up of multiple camps spread over a large area, all with different purposes. For instance, Birkenau was actually part of the Auschwitz complex and its official name was "Auschwitz III".
The Red Cross did inspect "Auschwitz". They were taken to the Theresienstadt camp which the Nazi's had established as a "model camp". This camp was also the subject of various Nazi propaganda videos that were shown in Germany to explain where all the Jews went. The camp had an orchestra, nice barracks, special children areas with play equipment and schools, etc. This was the facade the Nazi's created to hide what was really going on. That is the camp the Red Cross inspected.
Now, it was not all sunshine and roses. The camp/ghetto had been designed to hold 7,000 people, but was actually holding 60,000. Disease and hunger was a constant problem as reported by the Red Cross. This camp was run as a satellite of Auschwitz and trains constantly ran taking prisoners to the forced labor and death camps while bringing in new arrivals.
The Red Cross inspected ONE camp. There were thousands.
“The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering…I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations to propaganda.”
~General Dwight Eisenhower
'There is no doubt this is the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe. It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved.'
~Sir Winston Churchill
I cannot locate any quotes from De Gaulle, but I'd put far more stock in the words of Eisenhower and Churchill anyway.
Lack of food does not cause typhus. Typhus is a bacterial infection spread by lice. When people are hearded like cattle into cramped conditions and denied basic sanitary needs, typhus can spread rapidly. You are very correct that typhus was one of the primary causes of death among people in Nazi concentration camps. However, they got typhus because of the immense overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in the camps.
The truth is widely known. The Nazi's engaged in wholesale industrialized extermination. Simply read what Hitler said and wrote, read the records the Nazi's kept, read the minutes of their meetings and the objective becomes crystal clear...the complete annihilation of those deemed "undesirable".
No, they were not "specifically" for Jews. They were specifically for any group deemed undesirable. Of the 11 million victims. 6 million were Jews and 5 million were non-Jews.
In order to make the camp not overcrowded, the Red Cross visit was preceeded by massive deportations, especially of the sickest and weakest. The children in that propaganda film, which is available, all died afterwards. They were forced to look 'happy' by threats which worked thanks to the hope it might help survival. Any figures from the Red Cross about scheduled visits should be highly suspect.
In the POW camps, before the Red Cross arrived, they would transfer out the over population, sometimes just long enough for the inspection, so it wouldn't look like most were sleeping on floors. The stove in the barracks was full of coal and burning. They got new blankets. The barracks had to be cleaned. Sometimes it was the one reason they'd delice the prisoners. And of course they'd have their food packs. They knew not to tell the Red Cross the real story. As soon as they were gone so was the coal, the blankets and the food. Either the transfered returned our more were overcrowded later. It was all smoke and mirrors. But as by then there were many Germans in captivity, most sent to the US, and the Nazi's in their paranoia sure if it was really known that theirs would be paid back in kind, they cared that the mirrors only saw what the Red Cross was supposed to.
There is a book, which is expensive but worth it. Survival Diary of an American POW in WW2 is the actual diary of Sam Higgens, who spent the end of the war a captive in the infamous Stalag IXB. He wasn't an officer and took his notes in the pages of his bible to hide them as it would have been destroyed. This was the real story the Red Cross didn't see.
No, not as bad as the death camps, but an example of how reality and official paperwork can differ massively. Given the conditions and weather and crowding, if the war had lasted much longer the death toll in places like this would have been far more.
I remember reading that typhus was so endemic that any German who died of it contracted by contact in the camps was burned with the prisoners instead of buries because of the fear it could sperad to the general population.
Statements by Holocaust deniers have always deeply offended me and I don't believe I'm one percent Jewish.
On the other hand, my parents and many of my uncles served in World War II. Both my wife and I have an uncle, we never met, who died in that war. In my case, my uncle died after his ship was sunk. In my wife's case, her uncle died of contagious disease inside a military training camp before he could see combat. None of my family ever asked for any medals or honor for serving their country. None of them expected special treatment. I think now that all but my mother (who also served) are dead, I feel they are owed a certain respect. They are owed a certain dignity.
Preservation of that dignity requires that the achievement (Victory over the Axis Powers) not be trivialized or demeaned. Those who deny the Holocaust demean the achievement of millions of American servicemen and women as well as their families who made untold and often unrecounted sacrifices to defeat Germany and Japan. Without that victory, the Holocaust would have continued until all the Jews in Europe were dead.
During my years and debates here on CDF, I have criticized some, condemned a few, and praised many. I will say that nothing has offended me as much as Holocaust deniers. This is one of those rare situations where there just is "no other side" to a question.
Last edited by markg91359; 03-07-2013 at 02:52 PM..
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