Debating the Holocaust

Description

For the past few decades there has been raging a kind of subterranean debate, one of monumental importance. It is a debate about the Holocaust – not whether or not it “happened” (this is a meaningless claim), but rather, how it happened, through what means, and to what extent. On the one hand we have the traditional, orthodox view: the six million Jewish casualties, the gas chambers, the cremation ovens and mass graves. On the other hand there is a small, renegade band of writers and researchers who refuse to accept large parts of this story. These revisionists, as they call themselves, present counter-evidence and ask tough questions. Among the issues they raise are these:

1. There is no trace of a ‘Hitler order’ to exterminate the Jews;
2. key witnesses have either falsified or greatly exaggerated important aspects of their stories;
3. major death camps – Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka – have all but vanished;
4. we find little evidence of disturbed earth for mass graves;
5. we find few remains of the millions of alleged victims – neither bones nor ash;
6. mass-gassing with Zyklon-B would be nearly impossible without ventilators and ceiling holes;
7. mass-gassing with diesel engine exhaust is practically impossible, given the low level of carbon monoxide;
8. wartime air photos of Auschwitz show none of the alleged mass-burnings or cremations;
9. the ‘6 million’ number has no basis in fact, and actually traces back decades before the war;
10. trends in Jewish world population strongly suggest less than 6 million lost; and
11. the present number of “survivors” – currently over 1 million – implies few wartime deaths.