Holocaust: the facts

[danny la rouge]

Eric Hobsbawn talked of “society's need for historians”, whom he called “the professional remembrancers of what their fellow-citizens wish to forget”. There are of course disagreements between historians. We are always learning more about every subject, we are always refining what we know, always seeking new understanding. This is healthy. But what historians who study with honesty learn is what information is available, how to determine reliability, how to cross-reference independent sources, and so on. In this way, a body of certain knowledge has been honed. In the field of genuine Holocaust research there are differences of opinion, but what is not in doubt is that the Holocaust happened. And though painful to acknowledge, harrowing to hold in ones gaze, and disturbing to think of as the actions of humans like us, we need skilled and honest historians to perform the function of society’s "remembrancers".

But as well as honest endeavour there exists the pseudo-history of Holocaust denial, where history is distorted, where evidence is misrepresented, where misleading and false accounts are presented to the credulous or unwary.

This thread aims to be a resource for credible work evidencing the Holocaust. Suggestions have come from board members.

It has been created in time to observe Holocaust Memorial Day on the 27th January, and was prompted by a Holocaust denial apologist posting on these boards.


Resources


Documentary films:

The Nazis, a warning from history. (Laurence Rees, 1997, BBC)

The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophuls, 1969)

Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution'. (Laurence Rees and Catherine Tatge, 2005) (broadcast in the US as Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State)

History Books:

Peter Longerich, (2010), Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: University Press.

Ian Kershaw, (2008) Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution. Yale.

Adam Tooze, (2006) The Wages of Destruction. Allen Lane. (“a very good argument for the holocaust being partially about economic instrumentalism on the part of the Nazis” - ViolentPanda)

Karl Dietrich Bracher, (1980) The German Dictatorship, The Origins, Structure and Consequence of National Socialism. Harmondsworth. Penguin. (“how German anti-Semitism went from a minority pursuit to a socially-acceptable prejudice in less than 3 decades” - ViolentPanda)

Norman Cohn, (2006), Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Serif Publishing; 2nd ed. (“tracing the roots of the anti semitisms that culminated in the holocaust … shows explicitly how widespread and perfectly acceptable anti semitism once was. Real eye-opener. DotCommunist )

Suzanne E. Evans, (2004), Forgotten Crimes: The Holocaust and people with disabilities. Ivan R Dee, Inc.


On Holocaust denial -

Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman, (2000), Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Robert Jan van Pelt, (2002), The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. Indiana University Press.


First-hand accounts:

Jan Karski, (first published 1944) The Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World. (New edition published by Georgetown University Press, 2013).

Filip Müller, (1979), Eyewitness Auschwitz - Three Years in the Gas Chambers.

Primo Levi, (1959), If This Is A Man (memoir)

Primo Levi, (1963), The Truce (memoir)

Primo Levi, (1981), Moments of Reprieve (character studies of people the author met during his time in Auschwitz)

Primo Levi, (1986), The Drowned and the Saved (essays)

Primo Levi, (1975), The Periodic Table (autobiographical episodes)

Primo Levi, (1982), If Not Now, When? (a novel)*

Elie Wiesel, (1960), Night (semi-fictionalised memoir)*


(*either works of fiction, or not wholly non-fiction).


Reputable Blogs:

Holocaust Controversies


Reputable Websites:

Holocaust Educational Trust - Latest News


Academic Papers:

Peter Longerich, The Wannsee Conference in the Development of the “Final Solution” http://www.ghwk.de/ghwk/engl/texts/wannsee-conference.pdf


Newspaper Article on Holocaust denial:

New online generation takes up Holocaust denial


Thanks to JimW ViolentPanda littlebabyjesus Athos butchersapron chilango


Previous thread about recommended reading on the Holocaust/Shoah: Holocaust/Shoah - recommended reading in history/theory

I've just started reading Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives ed by Anthony McElligott and Jeffrey Herf - the first chapter is a set of preliminary remarks by Deborah Lipstadt. In this she outlines the basic premises of traditional or “hard-core” Holocaust denial. Thought it may be useful to post:

1. There was no attempt by the Third Reich to wipe out the Jews of Europe.
2. Some Jews may have suffered and even been killed but they were not singled out for mass annihilation.
3. Those Jews who were persecuted were deserving of what was done to them. German Jews were engaged in such nefarious activities that the German regime’s hostility toward them was legitimate. Those Jews who were killed by the Einsatzgruppen were guilty of being spies and partisans.
4. Those Jews who were incarcerated in concentration camps were placed there by the Germans for their own protection, to save them from the righteous anger and hostility of German “Aryans.”
5. The number 6,000,000 is an exaggeration which was fabricated by Jews in the postwar period.
6. Gas chambers are a scientific impossibility. Therefore, the claims that they existed are false.
7. People who purport to be survivors of the concentration and death camps are sociopaths, liars, or doing this for financial gain.

 

[Pickman's model]

Martin gilbert's book the holocaust was a great influence on me when I was younger

 

[danny la rouge]

It's worth adding a definition of the Holocaust too:

1. There was intentionality of genocide based primarily on race (but also on other characteristics the Nazis deemed undesirable).
2. A highly technical, well-organised extermination program using gas chambers and crematoria was implemented.
3. An estimated 5 - 6 million Jews were killed.

(Based on the definition given by Michael Shermer).

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Jean Améry At the mind's limits, account of Auschwitz, is available here

In 1976, Améry wrote this, a couple of years before he killed himself:

I do not have [clarity] today, and I hope that I never will. Clarification would amount to disposal, settlement of the case, which can then be placed in the files of history. My book is meant to prevent precisely this. For nothing is resolved, nothing is settled, no remembering has become mere memory

Levi did seek clarity, and I think he did want it, needed it. He did not achieve it either.

 

[danny la rouge]

Martin gilbert's book the holocaust was a great influence on me when I was younger

Is that his 1986 book, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy?

(He also wrote:The Holocaust, Maps and Photographs (1978), Auschwitz and the Allies (1981), Atlas of the Holocaust (1982), Holocaust Journey: Travelling in Search of the Past (1997), and probably others).

 

[chilango]

Thanks danny la rouge

 

[Pickman's model]

Is that his 1986 book, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy?

(He also wrote:The Holocaust, Maps and Photographs (1978), Auschwitz and the Allies (1981), Atlas of the Holocaust (1982), Holocaust Journey: Travelling in Search of the Past (1997), and probably others).

1986 book

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm being really picky here, but If not now, when? isn't really about the Holocaust. It's about Jewish partisans. People should still read it, though.

Another by Primo Levi, The Mirror Maker, a collection of short stories and articles written for a newspaper.

 

[weltweit]

Primo Levi, (1959), If This Is A Man (memoir)

Primo Levi, (1963), The Truce (memoir)

Primo Levi, (1981), Moments of Reprieve (character studies of people the author met during his time in Auschwitz)

Primo Levi, (1986), The Drowned and the Saved (essays)

Primo Levi, (1975), The Periodic Table (autobiographical episodes)

Primo Levi, (1982), If Not Now, When? (a novel)*

I have read: If This Is A Man, The Truce, Moments of Reprieve, and If Not Now, When. I found Primo Levi's writing quite compelling.

Another book that may be of interest:

The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, Denis Avey with Rob Broomby

My father arrived at Bergen Belsen shortly after it had been liberated, the local population were still claiming they knew nothing about it, despite fertiliser made from the remains being spread on their land, the regular arrivals of new prisoners and general running of a camp of many tens of thousands of inmates. I visited Belsen, my son has visited Auschwitz. Holocaust deniers are fruitloops, they are dangerous in that they can lead the feeble minded astray.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm being really picky here, but If not now, when? isn't really about the Holocaust. It's about Jewish partisans. People should still read it, though.

I haven't read it. JimW recommended it. I'm sure for good reason.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I haven't read it. JimW recommended it. I'm sure for good reason.

Sorry, ignore me. Read it people.

 

[danny la rouge]

I did swither over including fiction or semi-fictionalised accounts. But I decided they have their place if taken along with other accounts.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I did swither over including fiction or semi-fictionalised accounts. But I decided they have their place if taken along with other accounts.

Good call, too. If not now, when? actually introduced me to something I had not known about at all before reading it.

I take back my nitpick. Wrong call.

 

[DotCommunist]

A docu on the Treblinka survivors


Treblinka 2 was not a concentration camp, it was straight off the trains, through 'proccesing' then straight to the gas chambers then the mass burials carried out by jews who were considered useful labour. These men are not liars.

 

[danny la rouge]

Good call, too. If not now, when? actually introduced me to something I had not known about at all before reading it.

John Hershey's The Wall is an excellent introduction to the Warsaw Ghetto for young adults. (Though a novel, it was based on journalistic research).

 

[danny la rouge]

Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution'. (Laurence Rees and Catherine Tatge, 2005) is currently available on Netflix in the UK.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I have read: If This Is A Man, The Truce, Moments of Reprieve, and If Not Now, When. I found Primo Levi's writing quite compelling..

To labour Levi a bit more, I can't recommend him strongly enough. He is compelling, imo, because he is clear and simple and to the point. All the things I want in a writer, and we are lucky (if that's the right word in the circumstances) to have his books. He's a set text in Italian schools nowadays. Shame he isn't here.

 

[Lurdan]

My apologies if what I'm about to say is unhelpful or stupid but I'm afraid my nose wrinkles a bit about the word 'evidence'. This isn't a 'debate' between two 'points of view' which can both produce 'evidence', no matter how many shitheads and cunts wish to pretend otherwise.

There are some good books about the euthanasia programme - some listed at the bottom of this page although I can't recall which one I found very useful. Lifton's book 'The Nazi Doctor's' is not the most recent but is online at archive.org.

Pierre Vidal-Naquet's writings about revisionism are online in English and French (along with other tests) at Documentary Resources on the Nazi Genocide and its Denial

 

[JimW]

I haven't read it. JimW recommended it. I'm sure for good reason.

That is my fault Danny, was one of the books I'd re-read and recommended on that basis not as specifically dealing with the Holocaust.

 

[danny la rouge]

My apologies if what I'm about to say is unhelpful or stupid but I'm afraid my nose wrinkles a bit about the word 'evidence'. This isn't a 'debate' between two 'points of view' which can both produce 'evidence', no matter how many shitheads and cunts wish to pretend otherwise.

I didn't intend that meaning to be taken, mainly as I don't consider sinister, distorted untruths to be "evidence".

However, I've nonetheless changed the thread title.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning, who illustrates the bigger picture of deliberate racial extermination by shining a light on the smaller but no less organised acts of mass murder which together comprised part of the genocide. Perhaps most importantly, he shows how much of the killing was done not by ruthless far-right fanatics, but by ‘ordinary men’, and that there were factors at play which could easily be replicated. And he explains his sources, and he explains his working.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

This thread aims to be a resource for credible work evidencing the Holocaust. Suggestions have come from board members.

Can we also add Jewish literature that's not necessarily or immediately about the holocaust? I found some of it incredibly important for providing context and comprehension.

Chaim Potok's books. The Chosen, etc.

In My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer (and his other books too)

Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kertész

 

[Sprocket.]

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli. (1946)
ISBN 978-0141392219.

Dramatised as the films, The Grey Zone by Tim Blake Nelson. (2001)
Son of Saul by Laszlo Nemes. (2015)

 

[bimble]

Curious why the film Shoah isn't listed. It's 9 hours long and mainly witness testimony. I haven't seen it yet but would like to know if there's a reason it's not been included.
Did watch his the Last of The Unjust, which was fascinating, difficult and complex.

 

[Pickman's model]

This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen by tadeusz borowski

 

[danny la rouge]

Curious why the film Shoah isn't listed. It's 9 hours long and mainly witness testimony. I haven't seen it yet but would like to know if there's a reason it's not been included.
Did watch his the Last of The Unjust, which was fascinating, difficult and complex.

Because I haven't seen it, and it hadn't been suggested to me. But that's what the thread's for: recommendations I missed.

 

[chilango]

This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen by tadeusz borowski

I was going to post that, along with The Cattle Truck by Jorge Semprun.

Neither are strictly meeting the OP, being semi-fictionalised accounts by surviving political prisoners of the camps, but as powerful, accessible stories they're well worth a read imo.

 

[chilango]

On a similar note, I'd also (cautiously) recommend Conspiracy as an "easier" way in to some of the context.

 

[danny la rouge]

I was going to post that, along with The Cattle Truck by Jorge Semprun.

Neither are strictly meeting the OP, being semi-fictionalised accounts by surviving political prisoners of the camps, but as powerful, accessible stories they're well worth a read imo.

As long as we're clear what role they play, and flag them as semi-fictional that's fine. But I wouldn't want the list to be too heavy on that sort of work.

 

[JimW]

Curious why the film Shoah isn't listed. It's 9 hours long and mainly witness testimony. I haven't seen it yet but would like to know if there's a reason it's not been included.
Did watch his the Last of The Unjust, which was fascinating, difficult and complex.

Didn't the same film maker do a separate one on the uprising at Sobibor? Years since I saw it but also a great work.