David, as always, you have a serious point and I, obviously, shall agree with you.David Thompson wrote:Chalutzim -- I agree with you, but it is sufficient to make the point once or twice and then move on to other topics. The burden of proof is on the person making the allegation. Once you've asked for proof, and your opponent doesn't offer anything, readers can assess and compare the credibility of the argument.
The essential aspects of the holocaust are well-known. They have been established through more than fifty years of court proceedings in a large number of countries. The evidence consists of eyewitness testimony from victims and bystanders, the confessions and admissions of perpetrators, photographs, an abundance of documents, physical evidence, forensic studies and judicial findings.
Legitimate questions may be raised about the veracity of individual witnesses or their motives, or isolated items of evidence, or matters of interpretation of policy, etc. These questions do not affect the fact that millions of persons were deliberately murdered, nor does it alter the cumulative and overwhelming evidence of who committed the murders.
If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.
But I think that the most important discussion, once debated in another thread, is the distinction regarding the representation of facts written in a novel and facts written in a history book. If an author meant that his novel would be read like a fictional work, ok (like Steiner did in "Treblinka", only to be, some years later, demoralized at the John Demjanjuk's trial, by Demjanjuk's lawyer).
But, if he, as a real witness to the facts he is writing about, pretends to show us what really happened as literature, as fiction? He is not giving a testimonee (but in the same time, he is doing this), it is not also a afiddavit (but in some way, it seems like an informal one). He is a writer after all. How we can manage this situation? Throw out the whole content of his book? Or we can try to find some howlers, flaws, and despise the book as a hoax?
Who cares if Mengele used or not a monocle after all?
The evidence consists of eyewitness testimony from victims and bystanders, the confessions and admissions of perpetrators, photographs, an abundance of documents, physical evidence, forensic studies and judicial findings.