More Liars than Crucial Witnesses?

[Wetzelrad]

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.

I don't find that, actually.

Ber Freiberg told investigators that after a gassing "the floor was mechanically drawn apart, and the corpses fell below". He also reported that he did once "see a pile of corpses" in the chamber, but he typically just watched the inmates and the operator from the outside of the building. Clearly he claimed to be a direct eyewitness, not merely a parrot for hearsay. Just as clearly that cannot be true, so he must have been lying.

Srul Jankiel Fajgielbaum was a direct eyewitness. First he helped carry "iron plates" to the site of "the death chamber". Later he helped carry away the bodies, which he claimed were "black" from electrocution. He also described the layout of the chamber in depth and said "you could hear screams and shouts coming from them". Certainly a liar.

Ya'akov Biskovitz was asked if he actually saw the collapsible floor or merely heard about it. He replied, "Not everybody had the opportunity, but I, by chance, did. [...] I only saw, from the outside, that [...] the floor opened and the bodies fell below." His account also changed from one telling to the next. A definite liar.

The category of witnesses who reported hearsay was equally wrong.

Josef Trajtag gave a report that he said came "From the accounts of those who were employed there". And what did those employees tell him? "the workers entered the pit that was under this chamber into which the corpses of the murdered people fell thanks to the automatic opening of the iron floor". So did those workers lie, or were they also mistaken?

Icek Lichtman said similar. He was in Sobibor for 17 months and heard from "our fellow prisoners who had done this" that the floors were collapsible.

Saartje Wijnberg and her husband said similar, adding that the gas came out of shower heads. It wasn't until her third statement that she admitted this knowledge came "from Ukrainians".

Having now compared them, it seems that both categories -- those claiming to be direct eyewitnesses and those who reported hearsay from direct eyewitnesses -- told equally false stories. If you get the impression that there is a difference in correctness between the two categories, it's probably because the more ridiculous claims were dropped as time went on -- that is, narrative evolution -- not because they were more physically proximate to events.

All this casually taken from Mattogno's volume on "Operation Reinhard".

Also worth pointing out that what you are doing is a variation on the theme of the OP question. Your categories have become hearsayist/worker instead of liar/truthteller. So, are there more hearsayists or workers? Perhaps you could start by naming those who you say worked in and testified to gas chambers at Sobibor?

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?

Lol, so Fajgielbaum was just mistaken about having built an electrocution chamber, lined floor to ceiling with insulated iron plates.

[Nessie]

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.

I don't find that, actually.

Ber Freiberg told investigators that after a gassing "the floor was mechanically drawn apart, and the corpses fell below". He also reported that he did once "see a pile of corpses" in the chamber, but he typically just watched the inmates and the operator from the outside of the building. Clearly he claimed to be a direct eyewitness, not merely a parrot for hearsay. Just as clearly that cannot be true, so he must have been lying.

He sorted clothing at the camp, which, if you knew about its layout, was a separate area from where the gas chambers were. You admit he did not see what happened inside, which makes his evidence about the killing process hearsay. He was an eyewitness to the process at the camp, but not the actual killing.

You cannot prove he knew that the floor did not open, but he said so anyway.

Srul Jankiel Fajgielbaum was a direct eyewitness. First he helped carry "iron plates" to the site of "the death chamber". Later he helped carry away the bodies, which he claimed were "black" from electrocution. He also described the layout of the chamber in depth and said "you could hear screams and shouts coming from them". Certainly a liar.

I cannot find any trace of that witness. Can you link to his testimony?

Ya'akov Biskovitz was asked if he actually saw the collapsible floor or merely heard about it. He replied, "Not everybody had the opportunity, but I, by chance, did. [...] I only saw, from the outside, that [...] the floor opened and the bodies fell below." His account also changed from one telling to the next. A definite liar.

Again, where is the link to his evidence? What you report is clearly him repeating hearsay and witnesses who change their story over time, is common place. Hearsay and changing stories do not prove lying. You don't understand the effects of memory. It would appear that neither of those witnesses was at the gas chamber, even though they suggest they were. They are exaggerating what they saw and are either lying, or they are repeating what they were told, as if they saw what they were told.

The category of witnesses who reported hearsay was equally wrong.

Repeating what someone was told and making mistakes, does not prove lying. That is why courts rarely accept hearsay evidence. Historians and journalists also prefer actual eyewitnesses. IIRC, there is no Jewish survivor from Sobibor, who worked at the gas chambers. Instead, the eyewitnesses to gassings were the surviving camp staff.

Since the Jewish witnesses worked elsewhere in the camp, then their testimony is reliant on what they were told about the part of the camp they were never at. Hence, it is not to be taken as definitive and it is likely to contain errors and mistakes. If someone repeats what they were told, they are reliant on remembering what they were told, and how accurate the information they were given was.

Josef Trajtag gave a report that he said came "From the accounts of those who were employed there". And what did those employees tell him? "the workers entered the pit that was under this chamber into which the corpses of the murdered people fell thanks to the automatic opening of the iron floor". So did those workers lie, or were they also mistaken?

It is hearsay, they were repeating a mistaken account, or they were lied to and unknowingly repeated the lie. It is clear that a rumour spread amongst the Jews working sorting property, that the gas chambers had an opening floor.

Icek Lichtman said similar. He was in Sobibor for 17 months and heard from "our fellow prisoners who had done this" that the floors were collapsible.

Saartje Wijnberg and her husband said similar, adding that the gas came out of shower heads. It wasn't until her third statement that she admitted this knowledge came "from Ukrainians".

The vast majority of survivors from Sobibor worked in the sorting part of the camp. They are all repeating what they heard about the other part of the camp. As you admit, their evidence is hearsay, but hearsay is not necessarily lying. They are eyewitnesses to transports arriving, people going to the other part of the camp, never being seen again, the rumours about killings taking place there and sorting all the stolen property.

Having now compared them, it seems that both categories -- those claiming to be direct eyewitnesses and those who reported hearsay from direct eyewitnesses -- told equally false stories. If you get the impression that there is a difference in correctness between the two categories, it's probably because the more ridiculous claims were dropped as time went on -- that is, narrative evolution -- not because they were more physically proximate to events.

You have not examined the testimony in any meaningful way. You have failed to understand the significance of hearsay and memory and how that affects a witnesses testimony. They are all remembering, years later, what they were told at the time. Anyone, with any experience of witnesses, will know that is more than likely to result in errors by them and explain why they said what they said. They are repeating a rumour about an opening floor.

If you were to look at what the German camp staff said, none would report an opening floor, as they saw what actually happened.

All this casually taken from Mattogno's volume on "Operation Reinhard".

Also worth pointing out that what you are doing is a variation on the theme of the OP question. Your categories have become hearsayist/worker instead of liar/truthteller. So, are there more hearsayists or workers? Perhaps you could start by naming those who you say worked in and testified to gas chambers at Sobibor?

All of the Jewish survivor testimony, because all worked in a different part of the camp, away from where the gas chambers were located, is therefore hearsay testimony. The eyewitnesses to gassings, where those who worked at the gas chambers, all of whom came from the camp staff. This list of direct witnesses, as in eyewitnesses, only lists camp staff, for Sobibor and no Jews;

viewtopic.php?t=372

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?

Lol, so Fajgielbaum was just mistaken about having built an electrocution chamber, lined floor to ceiling with insulated iron plates.

I would need to see his testimony to understand why he said what he said. You and Mattogno, with no relevant training or experience, and bias, are not in a position to accurately assess the witnesses. According to both of you, if you are told something that is wrong and you repeat it, you are now a proven liar! How can you not see that it is you who is wrong?

[curioussoul]

I appreciate this take, because at the end of the day, the Holocaust story stands and falls on a mere handful of witness testimonies, whereas 99% of the remaining "witnesses" are completely ignored in the vast majority of Holocaust literature and are only retrieved from the dustbin of history whenever some minute detail has to be corroborated (no matter what other crap they might have spewed). Whenever you confront exterminationists with how much their witnesses are lying or telling verifiable and contradictory falsehoods, they'll fall back on the key witnesses they believe are reliable (Hoess, Tauber, etc.), without realising these witnesses are just as unreliable as all the other witnesses.

What's a bit surprising is that they appear to believe their narrative can remain intact even after dispensing with Hoess! I mean, out of all Holocaust witnesses ever, Hoess is undoubtedly the most important one, but I'm seeing a trend where Hoess is being downplayed in favor of broader appeals to things like archaeological evidence, random documents, etc. We've seen this sort of pivot before, when Gerstein was abandoned because of the diesel debacle.

[Callafangers]

I appreciate this take, because at the end of the day, the Holocaust story stands and falls on a mere handful of witness testimonies, whereas 99% of the remaining "witnesses" are completely ignored in the vast majority of Holocaust literature and are only retrieved from the dustbin of history whenever some minute detail has to be corroborated (no matter what other crap they might have spewed).

Exactly correct. And this is true for every region and every type of 'extermination'. The only significant complication for revisionism is that there were indeed reprisals as a response to partisan activity which entailed, in many cases, mass shootings of Jews, often not excluding women and children. Tragic, to be sure, but also a reflection of what Germans also suffered (mass bombings of German civilians, etc.) and due to matters of security (response and deterrent to partisans), above all else. But this means that some of the testimony from Jews (and others) about mass killings must necessarily be true. This makes it difficult to interpret the pool of witness testimony as entirely useless. Nonetheless, there is validity to the matter of anti-German witnesses collectively and frequently "crying wolf". Just what percent of the witnesses have to be caught lying (in a similar pattern) before it can be said there is some pattern worth acknowledging? Just how consistent does the pattern need to be before it can be argued as coordinated, to some degree? And what degree is sufficient to draw the entire, 'consensus' narrative into question, once fully formed?

However one reasonably slices this, it is bad news for the 'Holocaust' narrative, to an extent that not even the best versed historians a-la-Nick Terry can explain away. Thus, he/they are forced to gloss over this entirely, over and over again, just as with matters of forensic chemistry, hierarchy of evidence, the huge imbalance of power (persecution of revisionists, etc.) tainting the debate and matters of 'falsifiability', and so on. These are treated as trivial inconveniences by the exterminationist camp, simply because they can't do much else with it. Any reasonable person or scholar would find these matters compelling for the revisionist position, so rather than acknowledge/address or engage with these, the focus is instead on repeatedly showing just how voluminous, great in quantity, or vast the collection of witness statements is, quality/provenance be damned.

[Nessie]

I appreciate this take, because at the end of the day, the Holocaust story stands and falls on a mere handful of witness testimonies, whereas 99% of the remaining "witnesses" are completely ignored in the vast majority of Holocaust literature and are only retrieved from the dustbin of history whenever some minute detail has to be corroborated (no matter what other crap they might have spewed). Whenever you confront exterminationists with how much their witnesses are lying or telling verifiable and contradictory falsehoods, they'll fall back on the key witnesses they believe are reliable (Hoess, Tauber, etc.), without realising these witnesses are just as unreliable as all the other witnesses.

Reliability, like credibility, is not as important as truthfulness. It is proven that Hoess and Tauber both worked at the camp, and they corroborate each other, that Jews were murdered in gas chambers. They are also corroborated by other eyewitnesses, documents and the circumstances of the camp's operation. The reliability of the witnesses, about the details, will decline with the passage of time. But, once the crime is proved, the details are less important. So-called revisionists obsess over exactly how the gas chambers worked. But, that is not the real issue, which is whether they existed and were used.

Those so-called revisionists think that if a witness cannot remember details of how something worked, to their satisfaction, that proves lying. There is no study or experiment, into witness memory or recollection, that backs the so-called revisionists up.

What's a bit surprising is that they appear to believe their narrative can remain intact even after dispensing with Hoess! I mean, out of all Holocaust witnesses ever, Hoess is undoubtedly the most important one, but I'm seeing a trend where Hoess is being downplayed in favor of broader appeals to things like archaeological evidence, random documents, etc. We've seen this sort of pivot before, when Gerstein was abandoned because of the diesel debacle.

There is no such trend, or pivot. You will find nothing like that in the history books. It is your unreliable imagination, that caused you to think that.

The most significant evidence for the Holocaust, is not the witnesses, it is the millions of Jews who went missing, after the Nazis had arrested them and sent them to camps and ghettos.

[HansHill]

Slop.

It's extremely inconvenient to Holocaust activists like Nessie for these witnesses' claims to be held to account critically, which is why you see the copes & kvetches above.

Were the story to be as robust and credible as claimed, there would be no such coping.

[Nessie]

Slop.

It's extremely inconvenient to Holocaust activists like Nessie for these witnesses' claims to be held to account critically, which is why you see the copes & kvetches above.

Were the story to be as robust and credible as claimed, there would be no such coping.

The witnesses have been assessed, accurately, by trained historians, lawyers, journalists and criminal investigators. They use corroboration to establish they are who they say they are, they were where they say they were and the general narrative of what they claim. Eyewitnesses are preferred to hearsay and rumour, so much so that for the lawyers, only eyewitnesses are used, as most courts do not allow hearsay evidence. Witnesses are assessed for reliability and credibility, as in, how accurate is their recall? Account is taken as to how long after the event, the witness is recalling events, so they are given leeway regarding remembering details. The studies of witnesses, that show we are not great at remembering dates, time, duration, distance, the size of crowds, the size of spaces, are taken into account, are taken into account. It is accepted that the witnesses are not expected to be that accurate. They will make mistakes. So long the witnesses get the main events more or less consistent, variations in details are less important. Witness credibility is not an accurate way to assess truthfulness, as there are very credible liars out there and someone who is telling the truth, can lack credibility. The prime aim to establish what happened. How it happened is not so important.

For example, the history of Krema II at Birkenau. All the witnesses who worked inside the building, 100% of them, describe the same process. People arrived, undressed, were told they were going for showers, they were gassed and cremated. Their property was taken away for sorting. That is the main event, it is the most important part. How the gas chambers worked, or how many corpses were cremated in an hour, is less important. That kind of detail, is where, studies show, the witnesses will make mistakes and disagree. It is to be expected that they will vary in how many people fitted inside the chambers, or how many corpses could be cremated in an hour. That we cannot square the oven's need for fuel, with the amount of coke delivered to that camp, is not a justifiable, evidential cause to dismiss mass cremations as impossible and to not have happened. Camp documents record the construction of barracks for property, undressing rooms, gas chambers and mass corpse cremation ovens, so the main event the witnesses describe is corroborated by documentary evidence. They are also corroborated by circumstantial evidence of mass arrivals, selections, those not needed for work being sent to the Kremas, the theft of property and those people disappearing from the Nazi's record trail.

The way so-called revisionists assess witnesses is wholly unreliable, flawed, illogical and it designed to make them all fail. All 100% of them. That leaves them with zero witnesses and the inability to produce an evidenced history of Krema II at Birkenau. They have failed at the prime task of any historical, or criminal investigation.

[Keen]

there is no Jewish survivor from Sobibor, who worked at the gas chambers.

That's because there were no homocidal gas chambers at Sobibor.

Nessie,

The vast majority of survivors from Sobibor worked in the sorting part of the camp... How would you prove that someone has lied?

It's very easy. It's called cross examingation. That's why you cravenly run away every time you are challenged to defend your absurd allegations. Here is an example of how to prove that you are lying about Sobibor.

Nessie,

#1 - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; The USHMM alleges that 250,000 jews were killed in Sobibor - ??

#2 - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; It is alleged in orthodox histriography that the remains of the jews who were killed in Sobibor currently lie within the boundary of the camp - ??

#3 - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; It was once seriously alleged that the so-called - “ASH MOUND” - “mass grave” at Sobibor was comprised of - “ASHES” OF JEWS - ??

#4 - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; Sobibor's alleged - “ASH MOUND” - “burial site” has never been archeologically / forensically / scientifically proven to contain so-much-as 1 / 100 of 1 percent of - THIS DEATH TOLL - figure - ??

#5 - Is it - True. - or - False. - that; The largest (in terms of quantity of remains) of the 24 alleged "huge mass graves" of Sobibor, contains the remains of less than 6 people - ??

#6 - If your answer to question #5 was - False. - then; list all of the graves that have been “scientifically proven” to currently exist at Sobibor, in which verified human remains have been uncovered / tangibly located via bona fide, verifiably honest and conclusively documented archaeology - that contains the remains of no less than 6 people.

You can get all the information you need to answer the above 6 questions here:

viewtopic.php?p=15299#p15299

[Keen]

The way so-called revisionists assess witnesses is wholly unreliable, flawed, illogical and it designed to make them all fail.

Nessie,

XV - Is it - True. - or False. - that; The maxims of the United States Supreme Court include: “Cross examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” - ??