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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Yes, Virginia, There WERE Gas Chambers


Awhile back I encountered at a local NYC blog a form of Holocaust Denial that was new to me: the claim that yeah the Holocaust happened and Jews were killed (among other targeted groups, I would add) but there were no gas chambers.

Funny how you'd expect the Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust would have disputed this particular form of Holocaust Denial. But they don't!!! Quite the contrary! In fact now it seems their admission goes right down to family photographs and the stories remembered by their descendants.

Now there are many sources of evidence for the gas chambers. And <a href="http://healthymole.blogspot.com/2011/08/evidence-of-holocaust.html">I have discussed them before</a>.

There are two main sources of evidence in any crime scene, and the gas chambers were, quite simply, massive crime scenes. Those types of evidence are eyewitness testimony and forensics. Good criminal cases are built up using both.

Eyewitness testimony is in itself almost overwhelming. Eyewitness testimony doesn't come from the perpetrators or inmates so much as liberators who may have misinterpreted what was a crime scene where the perpetrators tried hard to cover their tracks. But there are camps like Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka where the evidence is very strong, where both the number and consistency of eyewitness testimony is overwhelming. <a href="http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/argaschambers.html">You can find eyewitness testimony here in some detail</a>.

Further testimony can be found here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arperpsspeak.html

More confessions by perpetrators can be found here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arperpsspeak.html

And of course an excellent eyewitness testimony by an inmate <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374500010/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moleshomepage&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0374500010">can be found in Elie Wiesel's Night, where he describes the journey he and his family through the concentration camps</a>.

As the allies closed in on Germany in 1945, there was a concerted effort to destroy evidence. Even before that, in cases where things went wrong the Germans systematically destroyed evidence of their crimes. The prime example of this is the extermination camp at Sobibor which was the scene of one of the very few successful prisoner revolts which led to a mass breakout. To cover up, the Germans dismantled the camp with the stated intent of hiding what had gone on there. This makes it harder to prove by forensics what happened. Archaeological analysis can identify areas that look like they were gas chambers and crematoria and basically give evidence completely consistent with the eyewitness testimony. That alone helps, given the overwhelming and consistent eyewitness testimony from inmates, perpetrators and liberators.

Some of the forensic evidence (documents, film footage, etc) supporting the eyewitness testimony <a href="http://www.enotes.com/forensic-science/holocaust-investigation">can be found in this article on forensic science used in Holocaust investigation.</a>.

Forensics also shows traces of cyanide gas in the very remains that eyewitnesses claim were gas chambers and that archaeology suggests were gas chambers. These chemical data basically prove they were gas chambers. <a href="http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/iffr/report.shtml">The key study was done by Polish scientists at the Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow</a>. The authors are chemists. The first author became Director of the Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow.

More evidence can be found discussed in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/deniers_01.shtml">this BBC article</a>,  and <a href="http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/neamane/history210/essays/gregory_auschwitz.html">this article</a> from the University of San Francisco, and <a href="http://www.whale.to/b/shermer.html">this article from Skeptic Magazine</a>.

But there is another bit of evidence that I didn't take into account the last time I wrote about this. The evidence that may not be direct eyewitness testimony but is direct testimony of those who lived in the shadow of and prospered from the extermination camps. BBC News has an article on descendants of Nazi war criminals that directly addresses this issue. From BBC News:

<blockquote>When he was a child Rainer Hoess was shown a family heirloom.

He remembers his mother lifting the heavy lid of the fireproof chest with a large swastika on the lid, revealing bundles of family photos.

They featured his father as a young child playing with his brothers and sisters, in the garden of their grand family home.

The photos show a pool with a slide and a sand pit - an idyllic family setting - but one that was separated from the gas chambers of Auschwitz by just a few yards....

His grandfather Rudolf Hoess (not to be confused with Nazi deputy leader Rudolf Hess), was the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. His father grew up in a villa adjoining the camp, where he and his siblings played with toys built by prisoners.

It was where his grandmother told the children to wash the strawberries they picked because they smelled of ash from the concentration camp ovens.</blockquote>

So family members not only admit to the existence of the gas chambers, but washed their produce because of the ashes that came from the crematoria,,,I mean how much more evidence does anyone need??? Eyewitness testimony from BOTH sides, forensic evidence, AND documentary evidence running through the families descended from the war criminals.

It is rare that you get such clear evidence of a crime!


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