List of "direct" eyewitnesses to gassings.

[HansHill]

Hoess's testimony contains inaccuracies and he was proven to have been subjected to coercion. Since his primary admissions, and that the camp was used for mass murders, are corroborated, in that respect he is a generally truthful and due to his role at the camp, a very important eyewitness.

Slop.

>Nessie: Pick one eyewitness
>Archie: Picks one
>Nessie: Well he's rubbish b-b-but what about everybody else?

That little exercise fell apart instantaneously!

[Archie]

Hoess's testimony contains inaccuracies and he was proven to have been subjected to coercion. Since his primary admissions, and that the camp was used for mass murders, are corroborated, in that respect he is a generally truthful and due to his role at the camp, a very important eyewitness.

You concede that his testimonies contain "inaccuracies" and that he was coerced. But then you turn around and say that he is "generally truthful"(?) because his "primary"(?) story more or less corresponds to a story that you assume to be true?

Please don't jump ahead and please don't beg the question. Let's start from the beginning. You posted this list of names as proof of the gas chambers. Your job here is to explain why we should accept these testimonies as proof. For sake of tractability, we are starting with one testimony as an example. I requested that we start with Hoess, the first witness in your list. I would start by analyzing that testimony for internal consistency and consistency with common facts before attempting to complicate the picture by bringing in a bunch of other testimonies at the same time.

I perceive that you are attempting to gloss over this little matter of "inaccuracies." You seem to be avoiding getting into the details, but the nature of these "inaccuracies" is, I think, highly relevant to whether we can take Hoess at his word on these gas chambers. I am sure that you have excellent explanations for these "inaccuracies," but please humor me and spell it all out for me.

[bombsaway]

Hoess's testimony contains inaccuracies and he was proven to have been subjected to coercion. Since his primary admissions, and that the camp was used for mass murders, are corroborated, in that respect he is a generally truthful and due to his role at the camp, a very important eyewitness.

You concede that his testimonies contain "inaccuracies" and that he was coerced. But then you turn around and say that he is "generally truthful"(?) because his "primary"(?) story more or less corresponds to a story that you assume to be true?

Please don't jump ahead and please don't beg the question. Let's start from the beginning. You posted this list of names as proof of the gas chambers. Your job here is to explain why we should accept these testimonies as proof. For sake of tractability, we are starting with one testimony as an example. I requested that we start with Hoess, the first witness in your list. I would start by analyzing that testimony for internal consistency and consistency with common facts before attempting to complicate the picture by bringing in a bunch of other testimonies at the same time.

I perceive that you are attempting to gloss over this little matter of "inaccuracies." You seem to be avoiding getting into the details, but the nature of these "inaccuracies" is, I think, highly relevant to whether we can take Hoess at his word on these gas chambers. I am sure that you have excellent explanations for these "inaccuracies," but please humor me and spell it all out for me.

I think the broader point here is how much should we factor in that every single witness with first hand experience of these facilities said that mass gassings were occurring there.

W regards to Hoess how much should we factor in the fact that he related extremely precise details, corroborated by other testimony and documents? (Blobel's use of flamethrowers)

How much should we factor in the well known phenomena of witness testimony being unreliable when it comes to details? particularly when testimony is months or years removed from the events in question, which were of a chaotic and traumatic nature.

[Callafangers]

W regards to Hoess how much should we factor in the fact that he related extremely precise details, corroborated by other testimony and documents? (Blobel's use of flamethrowers)

What precisely are you claiming Blobel used a flamethrower for?

[bombsaway]

W regards to Hoess how much should we factor in the fact that he related extremely precise details, corroborated by other testimony and documents? (Blobel's use of flamethrowers)

What precisely are you claiming Blobel used a flamethrower for?

According to Hoess and other witnesses, body destruction experiments.

British intercept here

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... tml#_doc55

[Callafangers]

W regards to Hoess how much should we factor in the fact that he related extremely precise details, corroborated by other testimony and documents? (Blobel's use of flamethrowers)

What precisely are you claiming Blobel used a flamethrower for?

According to Hoess and other witnesses, body destruction experiments.

British intercept here

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... tml#_doc55

And what in that intercept tells you this item was ordered for purposes of exterminated or dead Jews, or even for corpses at all, rather than for clearing brush, experiments with pest/insect control, or even burning trash, etc.?

Even if it was for corpses, why not for rapid lice control among them?

Who in the hell would think they are going to fully cremate piles of corpses with a flamethrower, standing outdoors?

[bombsaway]

What precisely are you claiming Blobel used a flamethrower for?

According to Hoess and other witnesses, body destruction experiments.

British intercept here

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... tml#_doc55

And what in that intercept tells you this item was ordered for purposes of exterminated or dead Jews, or even for corpses at all, rather than for clearing brush, experiments with pest/insect control, or even burning trash, etc.?

Even if it was for corpses, why not for rapid lice control among them?

Who in the hell would think they are going to fully cremate piles of corpses with a flamethrower, standing outdoors?

I never stated the intercept said anything about that, only that Blobel was using flamethrowers during summer of 1942, when Hoess and others reported him seeing him using flamethrowers in corpse destruction experiments.



I'm sure you'll write this off as a coincidence or a cohencidence, because I think you're working backwards from that predetermined conclusion you are so emotionally attached to. For me, and other normal people, it's details like these that strengthen Hoess as a witness.

[Callafangers]

I never stated the intercept said anything about that, only that Blobel was using flamethrowers during summer of 1942, when Hoess and others reported him seeing him using flamethrowers in corpse destruction experiments.



I'm sure you'll write this off as a coincidence or a cohencidence, because I think you're working backwards from that predetermined conclusion you are so emotionally attached to. For me, and other normal people, it's details like these that strengthen Hoess as a witness.

bombsaway, call me crazy but didn't the same captors who tortured Hoess and his family also have access to information about a flamethrower being used?

And why are you citing an excerpt that itself has been utterly debunked?

Höss’s claimed visit to Chełmno (to which I will return in the following section) is also contradictory and senseless, because Höss claimed that he had previously observed the cremation technique adopted at Treblinka. During his trial in Warsaw he asserted:

“I only know Chełmno, Treblinka and Auschwitz. I saw the cremation. By order of the Reichsführer, Globel [Blobel] had been assigned the task of locating mass graves and totally eliminating their traces. In this context, he ordered me to visit Chełmno in order to observe the experiments that were carried out right there to eliminate these mass graves. There they worked with flamethrowers, chemicals and explosives, even with various types of furnaces used for cremation. For example, there were furnaces utilized as field furnaces, or they cremated with the aid of wood soaked with gasoline. At Tremblinka [sic], the corpses I saw and which came from the gas chamber, as well as those who had been left for months in large pits [and that] were pulled out by excavators, [were put] on pyres [made] of railroad tracks,[189] the burning fire was mixed with wood, and oil was again poured over it, and it was soaked with gasoline. Initially, only a few pyres and crematories were used in Auschwitz, and cremations were carried out in this way in pits.”

The cremation technique using railroad tracks, also called “grate cremation method” by the Holocaust orthodoxy, is said to have been conceived by Blobel and then adopted in “Operation Reinhardt” camps (Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka) starting in the summer of 1942, hence Höss had the privilege of seeing the technique in operation before it had been invented!
However, when Höss was a prisoner of the Americans, he did not yet know anything about this. To Goldensohn he said that Auschwitz began to cremate the corpses “in open ditches like in Treblinka,” that is, with this technique: “a layer of wood, then a layer of corpses, another layer of corpses [sic; probably: wood], and so on.”
After seeing the cremation technique at Treblinka, what was the need to go to Chełmno? The alleged visit was also useless with regards to the results. “Blobel had various makeshift furnaces constructed,” but on his return to Auschwitz, Höss did not build a single one of them (and did not even introduce cremations “on a framework made of railway tracks” as they were allegedly used in Treblinka), but rather cremations on “piles of wood.”

p. 254
https://holocausthandbooks.com/wp-conte ... 35-coa.pdf

Regarding the torture of Hoess' family:

Alexander's men unsuccessfully interrogated Höss' daughter Brigitte for information; according to Brigitte, the soldiers subsequently started to beat her brother Klaus, leading Höss' wife to give up his location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_H%C3%B6ss

Beating his son in front of his wife and daughter. Surely, this would never set a precedent for a defeated man to tell elaborate lies, which his captors insisted he weave into elements of truth for believability's sake.

Do you really believe what you write, bombsaway? Is this the standard for evidence which you "normal people" uphold?

Even if we accept your premise as fact: Blobel was using a flamethrower to conduct 'corpse experiments'... what do you think this proves, regarding millions of 'gassed Jews'? Cremation was a constant initiative, we know it was needed for the corpses piling up without any need for 'extermination' policy... but because the broken man read his lines for the men who promised they wouldn't torture his family to death if he did, you think you've proven the 'Holocaust'.

Much like Eichmann's tales, only by totally disregarding the range of unique contexts which these men were facing (and ignoring their proven lies/contradictions) can you portray their words as consistently representative of actual fact.

[Nessie]

Hoess's testimony contains inaccuracies and he was proven to have been subjected to coercion. Since his primary admissions, and that the camp was used for mass murders, are corroborated, in that respect he is a generally truthful and due to his role at the camp, a very important eyewitness.

You concede that his testimonies contain "inaccuracies" and that he was coerced. But then you turn around and say that he is "generally truthful"(?) because his "primary"(?) story more or less corresponds to a story that you assume to be true?

The primary story is that the camp took mass transports, there was a selection process, those not needed for work were sent to the Kremas where they were gassed and cremated and all of their property was stolen. Hoess does not provide an alternative narrative, that primary story is corroborated by multiple sources of evidence.

Please don't jump ahead and please don't beg the question. Let's start from the beginning. You posted this list of names as proof of the gas chambers.

As evidence of the gas chambers. Each witness is evidence. On their own, none are proof. Proof comes from corroboration and convergence of the evidence. There are examples of multiple witnesses claiming a narrative that turns out to be false, for example, the witchcraft trials, so evidence from sources that are not witnesses is also needed.

Your job here is to explain why we should accept these testimonies as proof.

I have been doing that for years. The denier/revisionists I have debated have one thing in common, a refusal to accept, or maybe an inability to understand, evidencing.

For sake of tractability, we are starting with one testimony as an example. I requested that we start with Hoess, the first witness in your list. I would start by analyzing that testimony for internal consistency and consistency with common facts before attempting to complicate the picture by bringing in a bunch of other testimonies at the same time.

I perceive that you are attempting to gloss over this little matter of "inaccuracies." You seem to be avoiding getting into the details, but the nature of these "inaccuracies" is, I think, highly relevant to whether we can take Hoess at his word on these gas chambers. I am sure that you have excellent explanations for these "inaccuracies," but please humor me and spell it all out for me.

I have explained and linked to studies of witnesses, their behaviour, memory and recall on numerous occasions. They explain why witnesses commonly make mistakes over issues such as date, location, duration and estimations of size. Ask 100 witnesses to describe the process at Birkenau, after a transport arrived and expect to get 100 different answers, as different witnesses remember different details. The issues is, how different are the answers? Are they different in the detail or in the main narrative, or both, nor neither? Trained investigators look at the bigger picture and the main narrative, and are the witnesses consistent about that? In the case of how Birkenau and the Kremas operated, the witnesses are consistent about the main narrative. None claim anything else, other than gassings, took place inside the Kremas. None say they were actually used to shower arrivals, or as the Auschwitz camp complex's corpse store, or to delouse clothing. None say that people not selected to work, were put back onto transports and left the camp. When Nazi and Jew all agree on the main narrative, that is compelling, corroborating evidence. It is to be expected that they will vary on the detail, such as how many fitted inside a gas chamber, how long a gassing took and what gassed people looked like after they were dead.

The other issue with Hoess evidence is the intense pressure he was under. He was camp commander, he knew about the evidence of mass murder, he knew he was in a lot of trouble over a very serious accusation, that could easily be proved. He was also in the prefect position to provide exculpatory evidence, that would prove what really happened in the Kremas, since he was the person in charge, but he did not. He was an accused, whose moral, well-being, self-worth, all collapsed, when he was confronted with the enormity of his crime and that he had zero chance, because of the evidence, of getting away with it.

That is how witnesses behave. Recently in the UK, a car driver ploughed into a group of celebrating football fans. Ask 100 of the people who were there what happened? You will get 100 people who are consistent about the main narrative, a man drove his car into the crowd and injured a lot of people. Then, there will be variation in the details, what car he had, how long he drove back and forth for, how tall he was. That man will now be in a cell, knowing he is in serious trouble, with no way out. That is how witnesses behave and remember. So-called revisionists refuse to accept that, despite all the studies of witnesses that prove it.

So-called revisionists, seek to deny the gassings took place, so their aim is, from the outset, to disbelieve the witnesses. They need to find excuses to either claim the witness lied, or that they are so lacking in credibility, they can be dismissed outright and the gassings they claim did not happen. To do that, so-called revisionist look at the main narrative and then claim they have deduced gassings cannot have happened, therefore all the witnesses lied. They take the witness descriptions and pick apart the details, claiming they all lack credibility. The result is the highly unlikely, 100% of the eyewitnesses lied, and no eyewitness can be traced, who tells the truth about events inside the Kremas. Jew and Nazi, have colluded and cooperated and all lied. That appeals to conspiracists, to everyone else, it is a dubious, suspicious, unlikely conclusion.

[Nessie]

...

How much should we factor in the well known phenomena of witness testimony being unreliable when it comes to details? particularly when testimony is months or years removed from the events in question, which were of a chaotic and traumatic nature.

Revisionists refuse to factor in any of the studies into memory and recall, because they need to use the known issues about memory of details, to claim they all lied, or are too lacking in credibility to believe.

[bombsaway]

bombsaway, call me crazy but didn't the same captors who tortured Hoess and his family also have access to information about a flamethrower being used?

And why are you citing an excerpt that itself has been utterly debunked?

No they wouldn't have access to the British intercepts unless there was some level of collusion going on between both governments to hoax.

You've "debunked" every aspect of the Holocaust related to mass killing so I understand why you would scoff at Hoess's testimony (or every Holocaust testimony). The point about the flamethrower or Blobel destroying bodies in an experimental setting obviously doesn't directly evidence mass killing activities It's offered as evidence that undermines your narrative that Hoess's testimony is entirely fabricated or fed. If he's accurate on specific, verifiable details like this – details his captors might not even have known or cared to feed him – it lends a degree of reluctant credibility to his capacity to recall other events he witnessed, including those central to his role. It complicates the simplistic "he was tortured, therefore everything he said is a lie" narrative.

For "normal people" these points of specific corroboration make a witness more complex and, in those corroborated aspects, more believable – not less. It suggests a connection to actual events, even if the full telling is shaped by immense pressure. You prefer to see it as proof of an elaborate conspiracy by the captors to weave in "elements of truth for believability's sake." That, I think, says more about your predetermined conclusions than it does about the evidence itself.

Was it a coincidence that the British intercepted a message about Blobel obtaining a flamethrower at the exact time period when witnesses reported him using it in corpse destruction experiments? Is that document itself suspect? Does this mean there was indeed collusion between the British government and Soviets to push the hoax, by strengthening Hoess as a witness? Or at the very least British Government implicated in pushing the hoax, which substantially broadens the conspiracy you have painstakingly tried to minimize?

The simple point I was making with Hoess and the flamethrower detail is that it strengthens him as witness. Your inability to concede a basic point like this speaks to the depths of your delusions on the topic and your emotional connection to 'your truth'.

[Callafangers]

The simple point I was making with Hoess and the flamethrower detail is that it strengthens him as witness. Your inability to concede a basic point like this speaks to the depths of your delusions on the topic and your emotional connection to 'your truth'.

Me saying, "yes, I was in Denver last week and I totally won the lottery and made sweet love with Taylor Swift before fighting off a Mexican drug cartel with my bare hands!" is not 'strengthened' simply by the fact that a receipt showing I was actually in Denver later arises.

There needs to be some foundation, some reason to what you are claiming, which is not simply that "Blobel used a flamethrower" but, "Blobel used a flamethrower on piles of gassed Jews!"

You don't have this. This is why you attempt to connect dots between a heavily-coerced 'confession' and a decode about a flamethrower order.

[bombsaway]

The simple point I was making with Hoess and the flamethrower detail is that it strengthens him as witness. Your inability to concede a basic point like this speaks to the depths of your delusions on the topic and your emotional connection to 'your truth'.

Me saying, "yes, I was in Denver last week and I totally won the lottery and made sweet love with Taylor Swift before fighting off a Mexican drug cartel with my bare hands!" is not 'strengthened' simply by the fact that a receipt showing I was actually in Denver later arises.

There needs to be some foundation, some reason to what you are claiming, which is not simply that "Blobel used a flamethrower" but, "Blobel used a flamethrower on piles of gassed Jews!"

You don't have this. This is why you attempt to connect dots between a heavily-coerced 'confession' and a decode about a flamethrower order.

The significance of corroborating a specific detail in Hoess's account--such as Blobel's flamethrower experiments aligning with an independent intelligence intercept--is not to assert that this single point proves his entire testimony about mass gassings. Rather, its importance lies in demonstrating that the witness was likely drawing on some genuine knowledge or memory of actual events, not purely fabricating or merely reciting a script fed by captors. This makes a simplistic dismissal of the entire testimony, even one obtained under coercion, more problematic.

If a witness can be shown to be accurate on specific, verifiable operational details (especially those unlikely to be common knowledge or specifically prompted by interrogators), their capacity to recall other relevant events they were privy to merits more careful consideration. The testimony then becomes a complex source, potentially containing verifiable elements alongside distortions, rather than being dismissible as outright fiction.

[Callafangers]

The significance of corroborating a specific detail in Hoess's account--such as Blobel's flamethrower experiments aligning with an independent intelligence intercept--is not to assert that this single point proves his entire testimony about mass gassings. Rather, its importance lies in demonstrating that the witness was likely drawing on some genuine knowledge or memory of actual events, not purely fabricating or merely reciting a script fed by captors. This makes a simplistic dismissal of the entire testimony, even one obtained under coercion, more problematic.

If a witness can be shown to be accurate on specific, verifiable operational details (especially those unlikely to be common knowledge or specifically prompted by interrogators), their capacity to recall other relevant events they were privy to merits more careful consideration. The testimony then becomes a complex source, potentially containing verifiable elements alongside distortions, rather than being dismissible as outright fiction.

I can simply point back to the reply I last gave you; I do not dispute that Hoess' could be "drawing on some genuine knowledge or memory of actual events" (or events he heard some variation of at some point in time). This contributes exactly nothing to the overall question of 'gassing' and 'extermination'. You're back at square zero.

[bombsaway]

Well what would be the actual events here?

That Blobel really was doing corpse destruction experiments at Kulmhof which Hoess came to witness? We also have here a document related to his visit, https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... tml#_doc62

"Permit for driving a car from Au[schwitz] to Litzmannstadt and back to inspect the experimental site of field ovens Aktion Reinhard is herebey granted for 16.9.42."

Therefore Blobel's experiments are implicated in whatever happened at Chelmno and also the larger Reinhardt (Reinhard? lol) action. This is clearly not an irrelevant detail.