6 Million?

[R. J. Kimmel]

Roberto

Don't take this too personally, but I feel that you're chasing windmills. This conflict will never be resolved as long as individuals, such as yorself, continue to embrace it.

Facts are as they are precieved to be and no really new information has surfaced that would be considered significant... same old, same old!

I'm just guessing, but from your outlook I don't believe that you had lived through this wartime period as I had. I experienced persecution first hand being of German parents and grandparents and living in a Jewish neighborhood here in the U.S. Maybe I and my family should be paid reverse retribution?

RJK

[Scott Smith]

I was browsing in a used bookstore the other day and found some old encyclopedias and dictionaries. In an edition from the mid-70's the word Holocaust had still not come into the vernacular and was defined as conflagration; the etymology is Greek, a sacrifice consumed completely by fire, same also in 1910. In the same stardard references, but after the 1978 TV movie by the same name, the word was popularized as meaning the Jewish-holocaust in WWII. The Big-H had become "trademarked."

I looked up Auschwitz and the death toll was given a wide range of from one to four million! With a standardly-referenced range of about 400% it is understandable that there would be some confusion here!

Basically, anybody could authoritatively say whatever they wanted for the death toll between these limits, and no Holo-historians would issue an expert authoritative statement for the press, at least not prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the official establishment of about one million for the Auschwitz figure. Auschwitz had for so long been the flagship of the Holocaust, and now some ballast had been overthrown to save it.

The canonical six-million , however, remains the same. To meet these challenges of Faith it is necessary to bring some "ecumenical" rapture into the body-count picture and include all Nazi victims, not just Jews. Now we speak reverently of the eleven-million.

However, this new Greuelpropaganda is a double-edged sword because it undercuts the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust, and not all of these make victims as sympathetically as the Jews. Who remembers the Armenians of WWI? Who remembers the commissars of WWII? Who remembers the sodomites? Who remembers the handicapped, who would have been aborted then as now had abortion been legal and the technology advanced sufficiently to make a prenatal determination?

What I fail to understand is why a victim of the Germans in WWII is a greater victim than any other!

There were approximately 50 million killed in the war and we have apparently learned little or nothing about that conflict besides comic-opera notions about dictators and democracies. It was a Great Crusade, a Famous Victory. Killing for moral ideology is not less insidious than killing on account of socioeconomic class or tribal circumstance.

Just my two-cents.

[Annelie]

Roberto wrote

Ever met a German citizen who felt that he was bearing the guilt of his ancestors? I haven't. I am a German citizen, by the way

Yes, I have. And this person feels the burden and but what is one to do about this?

Annelie

[tonyh]

>>What I fail to understand is why a victim of the Germans in WWII is a greater victim than any other!<<

Media.

Tony

[tonyh]

>>Ever met a German citizen who felt that he was bearing the guilt of his ancestors? I haven't. I am a German citizen, by the way<<

But how often do you visit Germany Roberto and ask these questions?
I'm just back from Aldekirke, near to the Dutch border. And several Germans I talked to have immense guilt over a certain governments actions 60 years ago. The people I talked to however were divided. Some were proud of their grandfathers/grandmothers histories, quite rightly IMO and were sick of the way Germany's recent history has been distorted. And some felt that it was correct that some of their taxes went to "holocaust reparations". These people's ages ranged from 25 to 50. One woman said that a lot of German's are ashamed of their countries National Anthem! because of the resemblance it had to the Third Reich version and do not stand up any more to it, like we do in Ireland, well most of us. All the Germans I talked too agreed that they were truely sick of the constant daily bludgeoning that Germany recieves from other countries over WWII, wether its from a football match to movies and television shows.

Tony

[Roberto]

Roberto

Don't take this too personally, but I feel that you're chasing windmills. This conflict will never be resolved as long as individuals, such as yorself, continue to embrace it.

Me embracing the "conflict"? Why, I wouldn't even talk about if it were not for

Facts are as they are precieved to be and no really new information has surfaced that would be considered significant... same old, same old!

Which would mean that the "same old" doesn't need to be reviewed. However, historiography is not nearly as stagnant as you believe it to be.
Ever heard of Christian Gerlach, for instance?

I'm just guessing, but from your outlook I don't believe that you had lived through this wartime period as I had. I experienced persecution first hand being of German parents and grandparents and living in a Jewish neighborhood here in the U.S. Maybe I and my family should be paid reverse retribution?

Hardly comparable to the Nazi mass murder of the Jews, isn't it? It explains the resentments that seem to influence RJK's writings, however.

[Roberto]

But how often do you visit Germany Roberto and ask these questions?

Once a year at least.

All the Germans I talked too agreed that they were truely sick of the constant daily bludgeoning that Germany recieves from other countries over WWII, wether its from a football match to movies and television shows.

One thing is whether Germans feel burdened with feelings of guilt about the crimes of National Socialism. I don't think they do. Another is whether they resent being reminded thereof by non-Germans, to the extent that this happens. This they do, and they are entitled to it. I myself would object to a non-German trying to rub Nazi crimes under my nose. By which I don't mean the research on those crimes done by non-German historians, of course, as long as it is objective and sustainable. Many of Goldhagen's theses, for example, are not.

[Roberto]

I looked up Auschwitz and the death toll was given a wide range of from one to four million! With a standardly-referenced range of about 400% it is understandable that there would be some confusion here!

Big deal. I presume it was something like the following:

How many hapless innocent people - mostly Jews but including a fairly large number of others, especially Russian prisoners of war - were slaughtered at the one camp of Auschwitz? The exact number will never be known. Hoess himself in his affidavit gave an estimate of ‘2,500,000 victims executed and exterminated by gassing and burning, and at least another half million who succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000’. Later at his own trial in Warsaw he reduced the figure to 1,135,000. The Soviet government, which investigated the camp after it was overrun by the Red Army in January 1945, put the figure at four million. Reitlinger, on the basis of his own exhaustive study, doubts that the number gassed at Auschwitz was ‘even as high as three quarters of a million.’ He estimates that about 600,000 died in the gas chambers, to which he adds ‘the unknown proportion’ of some 300,000 of more ‘missing’, who were shot or died of starvation and disease. By any estimate the figure is considerable.

Source of quote:

William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960 Simon and Schuster New York, page 973

Emphasis is mine.

Basically, anybody could authoritatively say whatever they wanted for the death toll between these limits, and no Holo-historians would issue an expert authoritative statement for the press, at least not prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the official establishment of about one million for the Auschwitz figure. Auschwitz had for so long been the flagship of the Holocaust, and now some ballast had been overthrown to save it.

Nonsense. The four million figure may have been mentioned because it was the result of a contemporary investigation by a Soviet investigation commission, but it was never endorsed by historians on this side of the Iron Curtain. On the contrary. The figure of 1,135,000 victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, given by Höß at his Warsaw trial, is in line with most posterior estimates by historians:

- Dr Josef Kermisz, from the Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, wrote in 1949 that this Commission had evaluated the number of victims of Auschwitz at 1 500 000;

- Gerald Reitlinger in 1953 estimated at 800 000 to 900 000 the number of Jewish victims of Auschwitz;

- Raul Hilberg, in The Destruction of European Jews, 1961, estimated the number of Jewish victims of Auschwitz at 1 million and the total number of victims of Auschwitz at 1.1 million.

- Helmut Krausnick declared in 1964, at the process against former members of the Auschwitz staff in Frankfurt, that the total number of victims of Auschwitz was between on million and one and a half million;

- Georges Wellers in 1983 provided an estimate of 1.3 million Jewish victims at Auschwitz and a total of 1.5 million victims of the camp;

- Franciszek Piper, in a study that started in 1980 and the results of which were presented in 1991 and 1994, gave as the total number of victims of Auschwitz a minimum of 1.1 million and a maximum of 1.5 million.

The canonical six-million , however, remains the same. To meet these challenges of Faith it is necessary to bring some "ecumenical" rapture into the body-count picture and include all Nazi victims, not just Jews. Now we speak reverently of the eleven-million.

There is no “canonical six-million”, except in the articles of faith of True Believers like Smith who need something to whine about. There are estimates by historians ranging from 4.2 to 4.6 million according to Reitlinger to over 6 million according to Benz et al. And all of these estimates place the death toll of Auschwitz in the range of Höss’ above mentioned figure or below that.

As to the non-Jewish victims of Nazi genocide and mass murder, they have long been neglected mainly due to the “exclusivist” attitude of certain Jewish scholars. In fact they greatly outnumbered the Jewish victims. See the thread

Why the Jews and the gas chambers?
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 5783d82ddd

on this forum.

However, this new Greuelpropaganda is a double-edged sword because it undercuts the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust, and not all of these make victims as sympathetically as the Jews. Who remembers the Armenians of WWI? Who remembers the commissars of WWII? Who remembers the sodomites? Who remembers the handicapped, who would have been aborted then as now had abortion been legal and the technology advanced sufficiently to make a prenatal determination?

The last sentence is as sick as anything I have ever read from Smith. Not only is killing after birth murder regardless of whether the one born could have legally been aborted, the Nazi “euthanasia” also did not limit itself to those who suffered from serious birth deficiencies that could not be repaired. Whoever had the ill fortune of becoming physically or mentally disabled due to a disease like meningitis, for instance, was bound to be targeted as well. Helen Keller would certainly be a candidate. So would anyone who at any time during his life became ill with manic depression, psychosis or another severe mental disease. Imbecility (Schwachsinn) was targeted as well, whether innate of caused by disease. Which means that the lives of “Revisionists” would by no means have been safe under the regime they cherish …:aliengray

What I fail to understand is why a victim of the Germans in WWII is a greater victim than any other!

No one says or thinks that this is so. What happens is that, for a number of reasons, namely the unparalleled attention given at the time and to this day to all matters related to the Third Reich, its victims – or at least some of them – have become more well known than the victims of other genocide and mass murder throughout the last century or history in general. And whether “Revisionists” like it or not, this is largely due to their endless whining about this and to their attempts to deny or play down the crimes of National Socialism. If folks like Smith kept their mouth shut, I for instance would certainly spend much less time on this forum.

[R. J. Kimmel]

Roberto...

My feeling is that one should believe nothing of what they hear and only half of what they see. One cannot always rely on what others write or say as being completely truthful. No matter what the form, persecution is no different. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck... it's a duck!

You seem to avoid my inferrence that I doubt you have lived through this wartime period. In my opinion, if you hven't, you're simply blowing smoke.

RJK

[Roberto]

Roberto...

My feeling is that one should believe nothing of what they hear and only half of what they see. One cannot always rely on what others write or say as being completely truthful.

Who is "they"? They criminal justice authorities and historians have investigated certain events over a period of five and a half decades and arrived at conclusions that add up to a rather clear picture of events. The coincident and mutually corroborating evidence that "they" have uncovered speaks for itself. This means that it takes a lot of ideologically motivated ostrich policy to dismiss what "they" have shown you.

No matter what the form, persecution is no different. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck... it's a duck!

Why, is there no difference between mob harrassment and organized, systematic mass murder?

You seem to avoid my inferrence that I doubt you have lived through this wartime period. In my opinion, if you hven't, you're simply blowing smoke.

In my opinion, your having lived through the wartime period doesn't make you omniscient. Especially if you let resentment and bias cloud your judgment. So don't give me that "you were not there, so you know nothing" crap. (Which is supposed to mean what, anyway? “If Jews had treated you like they treated me when I was a kid in the Bronx, you wouldn’t mind what the Nazis did to them”, perhaps?)
I may not have lived through the wartime period, but I know quite a few people who have, and my capacity for listening, observing and thinking is good enough to see that your stance is just a beaten cover-up for a pitiable lack of arguments.

[R. J. Kimmel]

Roberto... Obviously there is a difference in views and snice this is such a gray area that no length of discussion will ever satisfy you or other staunch believers.

Unfortunately this forum is also bias in the respect that it does not allow the freedom of expression for those who wish to express their feelings that this may not have existed, or at the very least to the extent claimed.

There are some who believe that certain acts were carried out by radical individuals in isolated instances and that there was no true organized effort. In a democratic forum these opinions should be premitted to be expressed.

People like to use buzz words like "survivor" "death camp" "gassing" "concentration camp" which automaticaly envoke sympathy. No one is denying that there were many deaths in the detention camps and yes, some premature, but many died natural deaths, mass deaths from disease. It would be foolsih to deny this. What no one addresses are the missing reports after the war, that many were reported as missing under various venues. My reference is to a same person being reported several times. Then one must take into consideration those who may not have wished to be found.

RJK

[Roberto]

Roberto... Obviously there is a difference in views and snice this is such a gray area that no length of discussion will ever satisfy you or other staunch believers.

The staunch believers are on your side, I would say. I only follow the evidence where it leads, whereas you folks defend themselves with claws and teeth against the inconvenient evidence that may damage their bubble of Faith.

Unfortunately this forum is also bias in the respect that it does not allow the freedom of expression for those who wish to express their feelings that this may not have existed, or at the very least to the extent claimed.

If you word them all too obviously and clumsily, you articles of faith may indeed be seen as violating these forum's guidelines. But if you look around, you see fellow True Believers trying to sell their nonsense on this forum all the time, without the moderators saying anything about it. So just go ahead and give it a try. I'll enjoy taking your propaganda apart.

There are some who believe that certain acts were carried out by radical individuals in isolated instances and that there was no true organized effort. In a democratic forum these opinions should be premitted to be expressed.

They are, believe me.

People like to use buzz words like "survivor" "death camp" "gassing" "concentration camp" which automaticaly envoke sympathy.

I don't know if they do. I only know that they correspond to the facts.

No one is denying that there were many deaths in the detention camps

I wouldn't call places where people were placed under a most brutal regime of slave labor "detention camps". Not to mention places where people were taken for no other purpose than being killed there.

and yes, some premature, but many died natural deaths, mass deaths from disease.

The good old staple cheese. Disease was the least cause of mortality at places like Auschwitz-Birkenau. Overwork, brutal treatment and executions killed a lot more people there, not to mention the systematic slaughter in the gas chambers. In places where disease was the main killer, such as Belsen, it was induced by the grievous lack of food and sanitation that the inmates were forced to live under, for which the administration of those camps was responsible.

It would be foolsih to deny this. What no one addresses are the missing reports after the war, that many were reported as missing under various venues. My reference is to a same person being reported several times. Then one must take into consideration those who may not have wished to be found.

It's not as if the death toll of Nazi genocide had been established on the basis of individual missing reports, is it? The sources are documentary, physical and eyewitness evidence as well as population statistics and demographic calculations. Whatever double-counting there may have been can be expected to have been weeded out in the course of five and a half decades of criminal investigation and historical research.

So you're one of those. That being so, let me ask you a question:

In the Winter 2001 issue of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, historians Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas wrote of a newly discovered document, found among recently declassified material at the Public Record Office in Kew, England. The document is an intercepted radio message from Lublin in the General Government, dated January 11, 1943. The message was sent by SS Major Höfle, SS staff member and Police leader in Lublin to SS Lieutenant Colonel Heim, deputy commander of the Security Police and SD for the General Government in Cracow. Höfle worked for Odilo Globocnik who was in charge of the implementation of Aktion Reinhardt, the 21 month effort to destroy the Jews of Poland.

A precis to the article reads:

A recently discovered document sheds new light on "Einsatz Reinhardt", the murder of the Jews in the General Government. For the first time detailed statistics on the 1942 killings in the extermination camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, and in the Concentration Camp Lublin - Majdanek, as compiled by Nazi officials, are available. The reliability of the numbers appears confirmed by a consideration of the related research of other historians. The authors analyze the document in its wider historical context, raising issues that call for further research.

==============

[The Document]

13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250

State Secret!

To the Senior Commander of the Security Police [and the Security Service], for the attention of SS Obersturmbannfuhrer HEIM, CRACOW.

Subject: fortnightly report Einsatz REINHART.
Reference: radio telegram therefrom.


recorded arrivals until December 31, 42,

L [Lublin] 12,761,
B [Belzec] 0,
S [Sobibor] 515,
T [Treblinka] 10 335 [,]

together 23 611

sum total…[as per] December 31, 42,

L 24 733,
B 434 508,
S 101 370,
T 71 355, read: 713 555]

together 1 274 166

SS and Police Leader Lublin, HOFLE, Sturmbannfuhrer

========================

The total of 1,274,166 matches the total offered by Richard Korherr in his statistical report for Himmler, The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question of April 1943. Using the words Himmler had suggested as a replacement for "Sonderbehandlung" (Special Treatment), Korherr wrote:

4. Transportierung von Juden aus den
Ostprovinzen nach dem russischen
Osten: ............................1 449 692 "
Es wurden durchgeschleust
durch die Lager im General-
gouvernement..................... 1 274 166 Juden
durch die Lager im Warthegau..... 145 301 Juden

My translation:

4. Transportation of Jews from the
eastern provinces to the Russian
East: ............................ 1 449 692 "
The following numbers were sifted
through the camps in the General
government ............. ........ 1 274 166 Jews
through the camps in the Warthegau..... 145 301 Jews

What do you think happened to the 1,274,166 Jews who according to the Korherr Report were transported "to the Russian East" but actually - see the Höfle memorandum - ended up at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Lublin (Majdanek)?

Let's see if you can do better than your "Revisionist" peers.

Cheers,

Roberto

[R. J. Kimmel]

Robertto... Would you say that it was logical to tattoo a number on the arms of individuals who were about to be executed? This would seem like a waste of time and energy. You may continue your long disatations if you wish, however facts are as they are precieved to be, as is the writing of what one interprets things to be.

You win... Citizen of Germany.

RJK

[Roberto]

Robertto... Would you say that it was logical to tattoo a number on the arms of individuals who were about to be executed? This would seem like a waste of time and energy.

Boy, you need to do some reading. Most of those who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau and virtually all of those who arrived at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka never received a tatoo. They were killed upon arrival. Those who received a tatoo at Auschwitz were the ones selected to work until they dropped, subject to the miserable conditions at the camp and the brutality of their guards and "capos".

You may continue your long disatations if you wish, however facts are as they are precieved to be, as is the writing of what one interprets things to be.

A meaningless platitude.

You win... Citizen of Germany.

Very proudly so. Have a look at this site:

http://www.geocities.com/orion47.geo/WE ... nkamp.html

Regards,

Roberto

[R. J. Kimmel]

Roberto... I just have two questions for you. Is your German citizenship your primary one? And If so, whey then do you feel that the retrobution should continue?

RJK