From kck+@cs.cmu.edu Thu Sep 12 00:21:20 1991 From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.history,alt.activism,alt.conspiracy Subject: Responding to Holocaust revisionism Date: 10 Sep 91 01:08:48 GMT Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Nntp-Posting-Host: g.gp.cs.cmu.edu Originator: kck@G.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Recently certain newsgroups have experienced an infestation of postings regarding Holocaust revisionism. While flamage, email harassment, and attempts to get certain of these individuals thrown off the net may be emotionally satisfying responses, they are not necessarily productive responses. First, they allow the revisionists to assume the mantle of persecution. Second, they fail to respond to the substance (or lack of substance) in the revisionist posts, risking making their positions appear better supported, and turning the uninformed into the misinformed. The approach I would suggest is based on our experience in talk.origins. Every so often, some bright eyed and bushy tailed creationist who is new to the net pops up and says something like "hey, NASA thought there would be a 60 foot layer of dust on the Moon, and the dust is only 1/4" thick, so the Moon must only be a few thousand years old," or some other argument that has been refuted several dozen times in the past. At which point one of the regulars just posts a prepared file providing the evidence that the argument in question is wrong. Asymptotically the creationists come up with fewer and fewer points for which there isn't a refutation stored away. So my suggestion is...the next time you see a revisionist post that really raises your hackles, go to the nearest library, check the use of sources to see if they've pulled anything out of context, and try to find contrary evidence. Pick some particular point (the capacity of the gas chambers at one of the death camps, say), and find primary sources. While survivor accounts may maximize emotional effect, Nazi documents from the people involved are probably most convincing. That way the net will gradually build up a cumulative distributed database of evidence refuting particular points that can simply be reposted every time the revisionists crawl out of their hole. Remember, the revisionists are few in number compared to the normal people on the net, so small individual efforts have greater total leverage -- each person responding to the revisionist posts has to spend only a fraction of the time each revisionist spends, and yet the revisionist claims can be overwhelmed with contrary evidence. To start the ball rolling, here are some pertinent extracts from DOCUMENTS ON THE HOLOCAUST, ed. Yitzhak Arad. I should note that this volume also contains documents relating to early Nazi policy of trying to rid Germany of Jews through expulsion -- it must be remembered that the Holocaust as such started fairly late in the war. *********************************************************************** Riots of Kristallnacht -- Heydrich's instructions, Nov. 1938 "Following the attempt on the life of Secretary of the Legation vom Rath in Paris, demonstrations against the Jews are to be expected in all parts of the Reich in the course of the coming night, November 9/10, 1938. The instructions below are to be applied in dealing with these events:.... a) Only such measures are to be taken as do not endanger German lives or property (i.e., synagogues are to be burned down only when there is no danger of fire in neighboring buildings). b) Places of business and apartments belonging to Jews may be destroyed but not looted.... 2) On the assumption that the guidelines detailed under para. 1 are observed, the demonstrations are not to be prevented by the Police, which is only to supervise the observance of the guidelines." *********************************************************************** ON THE INTENT TO EXTERMINATE THE JEWS IN NAZI TERRITORY: >From the stenographic report of the meeting on the Jewish question held under the chairmanship of Field Marshall Goring in the Reich Air Ministry at 11 am on 11/12/38: "Goring: The second point is the following. If the German Reich should in the near future become involved in conflict abroad then it is obvious that we in Germany will first of all make sure of settling accounts with the Jews." >From a speech by Hitler, 1/30/39: "Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!" >From a speech by Frank 12/16/41: "...One way or another -- I will tell you quite openly -- we must finish off the Jews. The Fuhrer put it into words once: should united Jewry again succeed in setting off a world war, then the blood sacrifice shall not be made only by the peoples driven into war, but then the Jew of Europe will have met his end.... "But what should be done with the Jews? Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: why are you making all this trouble? We don't want them either, not in Ostland nor in the Reichskommissariat; liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them, and wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich..." Minutes of the Wannsee conference, 1/20/42: "Under appropriate direction the Jews are to be utilized for work in the East in an expedient manner in the course of the final solution. In large (labor) columns, with the sexes separated, Jews capable of work will be moved into these areas as they build roads, during which a large proportion will no doubt drop out through natural reduction. The remnant that eventually remains will require suitable treatment; because it will without doubt represent the most [physically] resistant part, it consists of a natural selection that could, on its release, become the germ-cell of a new Jewish revival. (Witness the experience of history.)" "In conclusion, there was a discussion of the various possible forms which the solution might take, and here both Gautleiter Dr. Meyer and Secretary of State Dr. Buhler were of the opinion that certain preparatory work for the final solution should be carried out locally in the area concerned, but that in doing so, alarm among the population must be avoided." Speech by Himmler before senior SS officers in Poznan, 10/4/43: "I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of the things that is easily said: 'The Jewish people are going to be exterminated,' that's what every party member says, 'sure, it's in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination -- it'll be done.' And then they all come along, the 80 million worthy Germans, and each one has his one decent Jew. Of course, the others are swine, but this one, he is a first-rate Jew. Of all those who talk like this, not one has seen it happen, not one has had to go through with it. Most of you men know what it is like to see 100 corpses side by side, or 500, or 1000. To have stood fast through this and -- except for cases of human weakness -- to have stayed decent that has made us hard." *********************************************************************** ON THE SECRECY SURROUNDING THE "FINAL SOLUTION" Instructions by Heydrich on policy and operations concerning Jews in the occupied territories, 9/21/39: "I refer to the conference held in Berlin today, and again point out that the planned total measures (i.e., the final aim) are to be kept strictly secret." Signed obligation by SS men 8/18/42: "1. that I may not under any circumstances pass on any form of information, verbally or in writing, on the progress, procedure or incidents in the evacuation of Jews to any person outside the circle of the 'Einsatz Reinhard' staff;" "4. that there is an absolute prohibition on photography in the camps of 'Einsatz Reinhard';" Order from Bormann, 7/11/43: "On instructions from the Fuhrer I make known the following: "Where the Jewish question is brought up in public, there may be no discussion of a future overall solution. "It may, however, be mentioned that the Jews are taken in groups for appropriate labor purposes." *********************************************************************** NOTES BY AN SS ENGINEER REGARDING DAILY EXECUTION RATES >From notes made by Kurt Gerstein, an engineer working for the SS, on the extermination camp at Belzec: "...In Lublin, SS Gruppenfuhrer Globocnik was waiting for us. he said: This is one of the most highly secret matters there are, perhaps the most secret. Anybody who speaks about it is shot dead immediately. Two talkative people died yesterday. Then he explained that, at the present moment -- August 17, 1942 -- there were the following installations: 1) Belzec, on the Lublin-Lvov road, in the sector of the Soviet Demarcation Line. Maximum per day: 15,000 persons (I saw it!) 2) Sobibor, I am not familiar with the exact situation, I did not visit it. 20,000 persons per day. 3) Treblinka, 120 km. NNE of Warsaw, 25,000 per day, saw it! 4) Majdanek, near Lublin, which I saw when it was being built." *********************************************************************** REPORT BY SD COMMANDER ON MASS SHOOTINGS OF JEWS IN LITHUANIA "Commander of the Security Police and the SD Einsatzkommando 3 Kovno, December 1, 1941 Reich Secret Document Final Summary of Executions carried out in the operating area of EK 3 up to December 1, 1941. ...I can confirm today that Einsatzkommando 3 has achieved the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families. These number: in Shavli, about 4,500 in Kovno, about 15,000 in Vilna, about 15,000 I wanted to eliminate the working Jews and their families as well, but the Civil Administration and the Wehrmacht attacked me sharply and issued a prohibition against having these Jews and their families shot.... The carrying-out of such Aktionen is first of all an organizational problem. The decision to clear each sub-district systematically of Jews called for a thorough preparation for each Aktion and the study of local conditions. The Jews had to be concentrated in one or more localities and, in accordance with their numbers, a site had to be selected and pits dug. The marching distance from the concentration points to the pits averaged 4 to 5 kms. The Jews were brought to the place of execution in groups of 500, with at least 2 kms. distance between groups...." DOCUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION gives the detailed breakdown by date and gender of the victims that accompanied the report. The numbers reported shot (mostly Jews along with the odd POW, Communist, or partisan) total 137,346. See also document 190, in which a German armament inspector in the Ukraine reports the shooting of 150,000 to 200,000 Jews in the Ukraine.