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Holocaust: did 6 million really die?

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So why were deaths in German camps (without going into numbers, methods or causes) more important to say the Soviet massacres than numbers 20 to 100 million? No one would get upset if people started questioning these?

Is it the animals that are more equal than others?

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you seem to have given up on your original thread question.

yes 6 million ( probably more ) Jews were murdered by the Germans in appalling ways.

yes Gas chambers were used as one of the murder methods.

no we will never forget.

Reply 281

anarchism101

Original post by Sir Fox

Both the numbers and the methods actually do matter.

In history there have been several genocides, some of which had very high victim tolls too (Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia etc.), the Holocaust is absolutely unique do to the high number of victims (6 million Jews, over 10 million all in all) and the industrial methods used.

While this is true, it should probably be noted that not all of these were killed by the industrial methods mentioned. Probably about 3-4 million were killed in the extermination camps. Still huge, of course, but just wanted to clarify this before someone jumps on it.

Reply 282

Ripper-Roo

Original post by Kallisto

You said it! the number is irrelevant, the atrocity should have priority. Instead of to discuss the true number of victims, it should be discuss why this atrocity comes true and how to prevent it in the future.

exactly, whether it was one person or 6 million people, the fact that it happened was disgusting.

Reply 283

yo radical one

Original post by SpikeyTeeth

Give the 1984 references a rest, Orwell fought for the reds in the Spanish civil war in case you have forgotten

The Holocaust is absolutely unique in that those who died were often, not just displaced and starved to death or caught diseases and died due to never having access to medical treatment, but because death camps were built, train lines were laid to those camps and the people were rounded up in and murdered in such a systematic way. Nothing like it has ever happened.

Reply 284

the bear

Original post by yo radical one

Exactly. And the perpetrators were people who had been at the centre of European civilisation; the home of Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe ....

Reply 285

yo radical one

Original post by the bear

Exactly. And the perpetrators were people who had been at the centre of European civilisation; the home of Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe ....

This is another good point, for all the jokes about Germans, traditionally they have been a forward thinking and tolerant people. The German countries prior to the rise of Nazism were very cosmopolitan.

Reply 286

Sir Fox

Original post by yo radical one

We should at the same time not forget how extensively the Nazis were aided by some regimes in Eastern Germany, how Austria participated too, how Italy was on a similar pathway.

This is particularly important as some people think that this was a once in history thing, that it could not have happened anywhere else. This is extremely important for future prevention.
As research from social psychology demonstrates, the majority of humans are theoretically capable of such crimes, it just takes the right conditions.

Reply 287

Kallisto

Entertainment Forum Helper

Original post by Sir Fox

In short: If the number of victims is too low, the holocaust is belittled as a merely bad thing. It would lost the status as the saddest moment in mankind's history. Is that your intention?

Original post by Ripper-Roo

exactly, whether it was one person or 6 million people, the fact that it happened was disgusting.

Worse than the number of victims is/was the method by which the National socialists have killed the Jews and the opponents of The third German Reich. And this is an aspect which made the holocaust to the worst event in mankind's (especially in German's) history - without to think about the victims.

Reply 288

Three Mile Sprint

Modern historians are putting the numbers closer to 2.5-3.2 million Jews

The initial number is now been seen as a gross overestimation.

Reply 289

JohnPaul_

Just because someone questions the 6 million number, don't presume they think the number was 0, unless they're obviously KKK or neo-Nazi groups.

It's a shame that such are taboo to ask when it's a historical question, there isn't really taboos on other questions of history involving murder or mass genocide. If someone asked for instance, under Mao, did 70+ Million really die? The reaction would be far less provocative than questioning if 6 million really died under Hitler.

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Reply 290

poppyevamay

Original post by Telnet

Why is it forbidden to ask this question?

It is not 'forbidden', but it is rather disrespectful. Denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany and other European Countries. Hope this helps!

Reply 291

JohnPaul_

Original post by poppyevamay

It is not 'forbidden', but it is rather disrespectful. Denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany and other European Countries. Hope this helps!

Criminalising thoughts and opinions, however wrong, is the thing that is and will destroy free speech.

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Reply 292

mazigh

Only a few thousand from starvation and disease

Reply 293

SpikeyTeeth

Original post by mazigh

Only a few thousand from starvation and disease

And if its the case that its a few thousand from starvation and disease, people can't say that that it doesn't matter if it was was just 1, because if we hypothesise that this was the case when you put this alongside a lot of events that our power structure says are good like Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Iraq them to put the emphasis on one and not the other is clearly a deception.

Reply 294

Chi019

Original post by Sir Fox

One of the things I find curious is that the 6 million figure was cited decades before WWII and re-occurs in a number of speeches warning about what could happen to European, or Russian jews.

Where? Sources.

There are other factors in terms of contemporaneous evidence that point against some of the claims. For example, pathology reports found people had died of typhus. There was no evidence of death from poisonous gas.
Source

Sorry for the delayed reply - I haven't been on the site lately.

1. Some references to the 6 million figure pre-WWII include:

1900 - Stephen S. Wise, New York Times, June 11, 1900

"There are 6,000,000 living, bleeding, suffering arguments in favor of Zionism."

1906 - New York Times, March 25th, 1906

" ... the condition and future of Russia's 6,000,000 Jews were made on March 12 in Berlin to the annual meeting of the Central Jewish Relief League of Germany by Dr. Paul Nathan ... He left St. Petersburg with the firm conviction that the Russian Government’s studied policy for the “solution” of the Jewish question is systematic and murderous extermination."

1911 - New York Times, October 31st, 1911

"The 6,000,000 Jews of Russia are singled out for systematic oppression and for persecution due to process of law."

1912 - Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, New York Tribune, September 11th, 1912, page 9

"Russia is now asphyxiating the Jews. It does not dare to offend the nations by blood spilling, so it is slowly, but surely grinding out the lives of 6,000,000 Jews."

1915 - The Jewish Criterion (Pittsburgh), June 25th, 1915

"The annihilation of the six million Jews now congregated in the Russian domains goes on in a well defined and systematic manner.

1918 - New York Times, October 18th, 1918

"Six million Souls Will Need Help to Resume Normal Life When War Is Ended. ... Committee of American Jews Lays Plans for the Greatest Humanitarian Task in History. ... 6,000,000 Jews Need Help."

1919 - San Antonio Express, April 9th, 1919, page 12

"At no other time in the history of the Jewish people has the need been so great as now. Six million of our brothers and sisters are dying of starvation. The entire race is threatened with extinction."

1919 - New York Times, September 8th, 1919, page 6

"127,000 Jews Have Been Killed and 6,000,000 Are in Peril. ... 6,000,000 souls in Ukrainia and in Poland have received notice through action and by word that they are going to be completely exterminated - this fact stands before the whole world as the paramount issue of the present day."

Pathology evidence

2. Regarding the pathology evidence that found deaths due to typhus, but not gas, I'm referring to Dr Charles Larson interviewed in 1980: Larson performed autopsies at about 20 camps and commented: "never was a case of poison gas uncovered"

Jane Floerchinger, "Concentration Camp Conditions Killed Most Inmates, Doctor Says," The Wichita Eagle, April 1, 1980, p. 4C.

3. Further to the typhus and starvation accounts, Dr. John E. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of preventive medicine and epidemiology at the Harvard University School of Public Health, was with US forces in Germany in 1945. Dr Gordon reported in 1948 as follows:

"outbreaks in concentration camps and prisons made up the great bulk of typhus infection encountered in Germany"...

Germany in the spring months of April and May [1945] was an astounding sight, a mixture of humanity travelling this way and that, homeless, often hungry and carrying typhus with them ... Germany was in chaos. The destruction of whole cities and the path left by advancing armies produced a disruption of living conditions contributing to the spread of the disease."

4. Dr. Russell Barton, a British physician, who entered the Bergen-Belsen camp with British forces in 1945 gave evidence that "Thousands of prisoners who died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II weren't deliberately starved to death but died from a rash of diseases.". John E. Gordon, "Louse-Borne Typhus Fever in the European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1945," Rickettsial Diseases of Man, pp. 16-27.

"Disease killed Nazis' prisoners, MD says," Toronto Star, Feb. 8, 1985, p. A2

Evidence obtained by torture

5. Another reason I'm skeptical is that evidence from German witnesses appears to have been obtained via torture. Judge Edward L. van Roden reported on this. “American Atrocities in Germany,” Progressive (February 1949): 21–22

6. Similarly, Ken Jones, a private of the Fifth Royal Horse Artillery, stationed with Hoess, stated:

"He came in the winter of 1945/6 and was put in a small jail cell in the barracks... We sat in the cell with him, night and day, armed with axe handles. Our job was to prod him every time he fell asleep to help break down his resistance."

Ken Jones, Wrexham Leader. October 17, 1986

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 295

user1150

how dare you ask such a question, anti-Semite!

Reply 296

Chi019

Original post by yo radical one

Except the pathology evidence from Dr Charles Larson suggests the deaths were due to disease, none of the autopsies he performed following the war revealed deaths due to gas.

That's consistent with the British Intelligence records of interceptions of German communications from 1942 onwards. There were references to typhus outbreaks, shootings and hangings. Not gas.

The confessions obtained also appear to have been obtained via torture. See Judge Edward L van Roden's article "American Atrocities in Germany (The Progressive, February 1949, p. 21f). Similarly, Bernard Clarke* and Ken Jones outlined how they tortured Rudolph Hoss.

Wrexham Leader. (October 17,1986):

Mr. Ken Jones was then a private with the fifth Royal Horse Artillery stationed at Heid[e) in Schleswig-Holstein. "They brought him to us when he refused to cooperate over questioning about his activities during the war. He came in the winter of 1945/6 and was put in a small jail cell in the barracks," recalls Mr. Jones. Two other soldiers were detailed with Mr. Jones to join Höss in his cell to help break him down for interrogation. "We sat in the cell with him, night and day, armed with axe handles. Our job was to prod him every time he fell asleep to help break down his resistance," said Mr. Jones. When Höss was taken out for exercise he was made to wear only jeans and a thin cotton shirt in the bitter cold. After three days and nights without sleep, Höss finally broke down and made a full confession to the authorities.

* Legions of Death by Rupert Butler

Reply 297

ageshallnot

Original post by Chi019

The problem with Larson's evidence is that he never visited a camp at which gas was used as a means of mass killing. He was restricted to those in the US-controlled sector and the main extermination camps were in the Soviet area. Therefore his evidence is largely irrelevant.

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Reply 298

Mequa

Original post by PythianLegume

It's not forbidden, it's just that it's generally asked by anti-semites.

Anyone who denies the Holocaust, please read this: http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar01.html

The usual issue isn't so much with questioning the exact "6 million" figure, as with questioning the order of magnitude of deaths.

In other words, suggesting there were more like 4 million instead of 6 million isn't usually enough to raise too many eyebrows, however suggesting there were just a few hundred thousand is much more likely to be taboo.

Reply 299

Chi019

Original post by ageshallnot

Not really, as originally there were claims Dachau was an extermination camp where people were killed using a gas chamber.

That was one of the camps Larson inspected.

How is the evidence for gassings in the east more credible than for gassings in the west, which have apparently been abandoned?