More Liars than Crucial Witnesses?

[Callafangers]

Here is a "hot take": There are more demonstrable liars for any individual 'Holocaust mass extermination' crime scene than there are "direct eyewitnesses" who consistently provide reasonable (believable) technical details.

Thoughts? Examples? I'm sure I'll getting around to sharing some but just giving others the opportunity to start the conversation.

[Stubble]

Apparently Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a plant. I think Warnick may have been a plant as well. I suppose there may be still others.

[Cowboy]

Dario Gabbai comes to mind. He has a brother that made claims equally as ridiculous, if not more, and Dario basically just repeats a lot of what his brother said.

[Archie]

There's no question that the batting average is really low. And the few hits are generally on things that aren't very relevant or that can only be "confirmed" via circular reference to other witnesses.

Imo, most of the witnesses probably do not think of themselves as dishonest. The psychology can be complicated, and people are good at justifying things in their heads. On some level, they probably do know that they are not being truthful, but I think in their own minds they do not think of it as "lying" because they are "communicating a larger truth" or spreading an important message that is in some way "true," even if the specifics of their story are not entirely real. I think the "pious fraud" concept is probably a good descriptor of quite of few of these people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pious_fraud

See this thread for comments on why you can't offset a huge number of false testimonies with a few (supposedly) good ones.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=116

[Nessie]

Here is a "hot take": There are more demonstrable liars for any individual 'Holocaust mass extermination' crime scene than there are "direct eyewitnesses" who consistently provide reasonable (believable) technical details.

Thoughts? Examples? I'm sure I'll getting around to sharing some but just giving others the opportunity to start the conversation.

Your idea of proving lying, is your opinion on the witnesses credibility, which defaults instantly to not wanting to believe them. The result is that you have no "crucial witnesses". It should ring alarm bells, that your method of assessment results in mass lying, whereby millions of people who saw inside the AR camps, Chelmno and the A-B Kremas, all lied, most by omission. It is also highly unlikely that 100% of the workers in those places would maintain a lie, successfully, for decades, with total success.

Lying is normally proved by evidence. Evidence is found that shows that the claim made is not true and the person who made the claims knows that. For example, the claim about mass graves. That would be proved a lie with evidence from a geophysical or archaeological survey that proves undisturbed ground. Or, the claim of mass gassing would be disproved by evidence of mass transports of people back out of the camp. Or a claim that someone was at A-B would be disproved by no trace of them on any transport or camp records, as them having been there. So-called revisionists cannot do that kind of evidencing and often, when asked to do so, they complain about a supposed reversal of the burden of proof and mistakenly claim that it is not possible to prove a negative.

Your comment about reasonable, believable "technical details" is not backed by any study. Just because a witness does not provide a description that is believable, about the technical details of say gassing, does not prove they lied. You cannot link to a single study about witness descriptions, that evidences better description proves truthfulness and liars reliably produce poor descriptions. Fact is, someone can be very credible about what they describe and it is a total fabrication. Also, someone who is telling the truth, can be very poor at remembering and describing the details. For example, how many people fitted inside a gas chamber. Studies prove that people are poor at estimating the size of a crowd, so when a witness gets it provably wrong, that does not prove lying. The same applies to how long gassings took. People are not reliable at estimating how long a task took.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/ouco ... &section=1

"Research suggests that, generally, we are not very accurate in our estimates of how long something lasts (temporal duration) or of distance. We may overestimate the length of events of short duration, sometimes by as much as 500%."

It is also worth noting that your default position is to find a "technical detail" that you find flawed and when you struggle with that, you switch to claiming the witness was coerced. So-called revisionist assessment of witnesses is not credible or reliable and it is no basis in the many studies of witness behaviour, memory and recall.

[Nessie]

There's no question that the batting average is really low. And the few hits are generally on things that aren't very relevant or that can only be "confirmed" via circular reference to other witnesses.

Imo, most of the witnesses probably do not think of themselves as dishonest...

Most of the witnesses were Germans.

[Wetzelrad]

I think the fate of the Ovitz family of dwarfs serves as a good example. A few pages of the book Giants (shared below) summarize the witness accounts.

Among those saying that the dwarfs were executed are: Ella Lingens-Reiner, Sigmond Hirsch, Maria Gasiorowska, Filip Mueller, Maria Halina Zombirt, Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, Fania Fenelon, and Renee Firestone, as well as Danuta Czech and other "camp historians".

The only witness who is given to take a neutral position was a Dr. Katarina Laniewska, who is quoted only for saying the dwarfs "were taken away."

One witness who told the truth versus eight who did not. Those eight would be crucial witnesses if the alleged murders hadn't been debunked.

[Nessie]

I think the fate of the Ovitz family of dwarfs serves as a good example. A few pages of the book Giants (shared below) summarize the witness accounts.

Among those saying that the dwarfs were executed are: Ella Lingens-Reiner, Sigmond Hirsch, Maria Gasiorowska, Filip Mueller, Maria Halina Zombirt, Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, Fania Fenelon, and Renee Firestone, as well as Danuta Czech and other "camp historians".

The only witness who is given to take a neutral position was a Dr. Katarina Laniewska, who is quoted only for saying the dwarfs "were taken away."

One witness who told the truth versus eight who did not. Those eight would be crucial witnesses if the alleged murders hadn't been debunked.

You have not proved anyone lied. All you have done is shown that people were wrong. To prove a lie, you need to prove intent to deceive. All the people you list could well have genuinely believed that the dwarf family were killed. They were unlikely to have been the only dwarfs who were imprisoned at the camp.

[Wetzelrad]

You have not proved anyone lied. All you have done is shown that people were wrong. To prove a lie, you need to prove intent to deceive. All the people you list could well have genuinely believed that the dwarf family were killed. They were unlikely to have been the only dwarfs who were imprisoned at the camp.

Thanks, but I'm not interested in a semantic argument. If I told people that John murdered Jane, and Jane turned out to still be alive, perhaps it could be argued that I wasn't lying, but that is functionally irrelevant to whether or not a murder did in fact occur. Likewise for the Holocaust.

Here is a "hot take": There are more demonstrable liars for any individual 'Holocaust mass extermination' crime scene than there are "direct eyewitnesses" who consistently provide reasonable (believable) technical details.

This question seems difficult to tackle because the very witnesses that Revisionists consider liars are the same ones that Narrative Defenders consider crucial. Below is a short list of witnesses to extermination at Sobibor. Perhaps some Defender of good character could look it over and break it down into truthtellers and liars?

List:

Spoiler

Berisch Moiseyevich Freiberg
Chaim Podroznik
Hersz Cukierman
Samet Mottel
Salomon Podchlebnik
Jozef Malinski
Miriam Novitch
Chaskiel Mendel (Yechezkel Menche)
Kurt Thomas
Leon Feldhendler
Zelda Metz
Josef Trajtag
Srul Fajgielbaum
S. Podchlebnik
Icek Lichtmann
Eda Lichtman
Ursula Stern
Chaim Engel
Salomea Hanel
Saartje Wijnberg
Alexander Pechersky
Hella Felenbaum-Weiss
Moshe Bahir
Ya’akov Biskovitz
Moshe Bahir
Alexander Pechersky
anonymous Jewish author of August 17, 1943 report
deserter who authored October 7, 1943 report
Stanisław Szmajzner
Mikhail Razgonayev
Vassily Pankov
Franz Stangl
Erich Fuchs
Erich Bauer
Kurt Bolender
Hershl Zukerman

[Cowboy]

Imo, most of the witnesses probably do not think of themselves as dishonest. The psychology can be complicated, and people are good at justifying things in their heads. On some level, they probably do know that they are not being truthful, but I think in their own minds they do not think of it as "lying" because they are "communicating a larger truth" or spreading an important message that is in some way "true," even if the specifics of their story are not entirely real. I think the "pious fraud" concept is probably a good descriptor of quite of few of these people.

This is probably the best example of this explanation that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Keen]

For example, the claim about mass graves. That would be proved a lie with evidence from a geophysical or archaeological survey that proves undisturbed ground.

Nessie:

A - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; Non-nefarious diggings for such things as garbage pits, cellars, wells, latrines, etc. - were dug at Belzec, Chelmno, Ponary, Sobibor and Treblinka II - ??

[Keen]

You have not proved anyone lied.

But Greg Gerdes has:
http://thisisaboutscience.com/

Every single person who claimed to witness mass graves at B, C, P, S & TII lied.

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

[Nessie]

You have not proved anyone lied. All you have done is shown that people were wrong. To prove a lie, you need to prove intent to deceive. All the people you list could well have genuinely believed that the dwarf family were killed. They were unlikely to have been the only dwarfs who were imprisoned at the camp.

Thanks, but I'm not interested in a semantic argument. If I told people that John murdered Jane, and Jane turned out to still be alive, perhaps it could be argued that I wasn't lying, but that is functionally irrelevant to whether or not a murder did in fact occur. Likewise for the Holocaust.

Jane being alive makes John's claim suspect, but if John had told you he had murdered Jane, your claim she had been murdered would be a mistake, not a lie. You would have good reason to believe John had murdered Jane.

The Nazis admitted to the murders, or denying knowledge of or involvement in their murder. There is evidence to prove the murders. Therefore the Nazis are not lying.

I am not making a semantic argument, I am making an evidential one.

Here is a "hot take": There are more demonstrable liars for any individual 'Holocaust mass extermination' crime scene than there are "direct eyewitnesses" who consistently provide reasonable (believable) technical details.

This question seems difficult to tackle because the very witnesses that Revisionists consider liars are the same ones that Narrative Defenders consider crucial. Below is a short list of witnesses to extermination at Sobibor. Perhaps some Defender of good character could look it over and break it down into truthtellers and liars?

List:

Spoiler

Berisch Moiseyevich Freiberg
Chaim Podroznik
Hersz Cukierman
Samet Mottel
Salomon Podchlebnik
Jozef Malinski
Miriam Novitch
Chaskiel Mendel (Yechezkel Menche)
Kurt Thomas
Leon Feldhendler
Zelda Metz
Josef Trajtag
Srul Fajgielbaum
S. Podchlebnik
Icek Lichtmann
Eda Lichtman
Ursula Stern
Chaim Engel
Salomea Hanel
Saartje Wijnberg
Alexander Pechersky
Hella Felenbaum-Weiss
Moshe Bahir
Ya’akov Biskovitz
Moshe Bahir
Alexander Pechersky
anonymous Jewish author of August 17, 1943 report
deserter who authored October 7, 1943 report
Stanisław Szmajzner
Mikhail Razgonayev
Vassily Pankov
Franz Stangl
Erich Fuchs
Erich Bauer
Kurt Bolender
Hershl Zukerman

Revisionists consider 100% of the staff and anyone else who was inside Sobibor, to be a liar. They cannot evidence what did happen inside Sobibor, to prove no gassings. That means the claim of all are liars if based on opinion, not evidence.

[Wetzelrad]

There's 36 people on that list. Some of their testimony is hugely contradictory, e.g. electrocution versus gassing, collapsible floors, yet you can't pick out even one of them as a liar? Is there any Holocaust witness you would admit is a liar?

[Nessie]

There's 36 people on that list. Some of their testimony is hugely contradictory, e.g. electrocution versus gassing, collapsible floors, yet you can't pick out even one of them as a liar?

If you read the testimony, you would find that claims about electrocution and collapsible floors, were made by people who did not see the chambers in operation, so their evidence is hearsay, which explains the inconsistency. Those who worked at the chambers, which were kept separate from the rest of the camp, describe gassings. They all agree that the deaths took place inside chambers, so they are not was contradictory as you suggest.

Is there any Holocaust witness you would admit is a liar?

The eyewitnesses used for the trials, were verified before being used as witnesses. Historians prefer those witnesses, but they will also reference the hearsay. So, of the ones I know about, who worked at the AR camps, none were lying. They made mistakes, which is to be expected, but none are proven to be lying about what took place inside those camps.

How would you prove that someone has lied?