I think you can make fun of anything and I like jokes that are in bad taste,
provided they're funny. I don't think Lyle Burkhead's post about The
Holocaust was funny.
>Obviously, if photos of the gassing operation existed, they
>would have been published a long time ago.
There are plenty of pictures of the gas chambers, but I grant you I don't
know of any photos of the interior of the gas chambers when they were in
operation. Perhaps the NAZIS had noting better to do during the war than
build gas chambers for fun, perhaps the many people who heard screams
coming from them were mistaken, perhaps somebody told a joke in the chamber
and they were really laughing, but perhaps there is another explanation why
we don't have photos. The victims were all naked and could have not had a
camera, and when the air tight doors of the gas chamber are sealed it is
pitch dark, the only opening is a small hole to drop the Zyklon B crystals
through. Yes, the guards could have rigged up a remote controlled camera and
special flood lights, but, well ... I can only speak for myself but I
wouldn't go to all that trouble just to prove to the world that I was a mass
murderer. Most murders don't like to leave more evidence around than they
need to.
If the gas chambers did not exist I don't see why somebody didn't use that in
their defense in any of the many war crimes trials after the war. Instead the
defense was either "I was only following orders" or "I was never a guard at
the camp, you have me confused with another man with the same name". Even
Rudolf Hoess, the commander of Auschwitz never denied he used gas chambers.
Hoess testified at his trial:
"The Final Solution of the Jewish question mente the complete extermination
of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities
at Auschwitz in June 1941."
Hoess bragged that he ran the most efficient death factory in the Reich, and
cheerfully described how Auschwitz routinely turned 6000 living human beings
into a small dump truck full of ashes ever day. He then gave us his secrets
for success, when he was told to set up his new camp he decided to do some
research first.
"I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out exterminations. The
camp commander at Treblinka told me he used [carbon] monoxide gas and I
did not think his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the
extermination building at Auschwitz I used Zyklon B which is crystallized
prussic acid which we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening.
It took from three to fifteen minutes to kill the people in the death
chamber, depending on climatic conditions. We knew when the people were
dead because their screaming stopped.[...] Another improvement we made
over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2000
people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their ten gas chambers only
accommodate 200 people each [...] Still another improvement we made over
Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew they were
to be exterminated while at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims
into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. [...] We
were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course
the foul and nauseating stench from continuously burning bodies permeated
the entire area and all the people living in the surrounding communities
knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz."
Remember this was said by Rudolf Hoess, the top man at Auschwitz, there is no
reason for him to say these things if they were not true, it would not be to
his advantage. As it is, by telling the truth Hoess was hanged in 1947.
>Fred Leuchter went to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek,
>took samples from the alleged gas chambers, and sent them
> to a lab to be tested for traces of toxic gas.
The reason that cyanide, the gas given off by Zyklon B, is very popular in
the termite killing business and very unpopular in the chemical warfare
business is that it leaves no residue, it does not last and in fact is
lighter than air. Unless it's confined in a building it becomes harmless
almost immediately.
>either there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, or there were
>not. We aren't talking about Schroedinger's cat.
No Lyle, I fear we are talking about Schroedinger's cat. I can't think of any
evidence that would satisfy you, you say all the witnesses are lying, and
the millions who vanished are not dead but just shy and don't want to speak
up, if I did have photos I'm sure you would say they were fake. We know the
gas chambers existed, we have lots of witnesses who say they saw them in
operation, we have crematoria and burning pits that could have deposed of the
bodies, we have millions of missing Jews, it doesn't seem like much of a
stretch to form a conclusion from the above. The evidence is excellent that
millions were gassed but I wasn't there so can I be absolutely certain. The
evidence is excellent that ROME exists, but I've never been there so I can't
be absolutely certain that the city exists either.
Lyle, I think one reason you wrote your post is that you wanted to shock
people, well it certainly worked in my case. I've strongly disagreed with you
in the past but was astonished that you, or anyone on the Extropian List
would write anything so ugly.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.i
iQCzAgUBMsROtX03wfSpid95AQEh4QTwiByfdW2JyjFDhTpnbsPYbbQCN9yAKVEF
N2Cw5+vkFTs+7Pv30ff9CUMBbDgh0vNnP9tXE6KlLKtt5YuwqrEHPLsxO3hPDltC
L7OFE3zBmnEJ796je5JLlgzvrby48VW9edLSxVOOcrkdfie6TqXHUwIDS3DP05Cb
K5Fbao1GcNkbAXcL8EDWWzIERyVnhoAxZfmGU3xdlFtUtd7qt8M=
=+9HS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----