## Holocaust Denial

#### Here are a few rebuttals to Holocaust denial talking points, though not all unsubstantiated denier claims warrant an academic paper in response. Note that some refutations rely on external sources that expand upon each refutation with sources not provided here.

*   **The Liberal Sanity Project**, who helped with Vaush’s original document, has a good [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_YFgugVhns) on this
*   **CLAIM: The estimated number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust is wildly overinflated.**
    *   [This extensive and well-sourced post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/76avmk/how_do_we_estimate_the_number_of_jewish_deaths_in/doco9me/) explains how modern historians arrived at their estimation of Jewish Holocaust deaths (5.4 - 6.2 million).
    *   There is lively academic debate within that range (Nazis kept poor records so we will never have a completely accurate answer) but no serious historian believes in any figure which deviates significantly from that range.
    *   A passage from _Denying History_:
    
> Historians are the ones who should be described as revisionists. To receive a Ph.D. and become a professional historian, one must write an original work with research based on primary documents and new sources, reexamining or reinterpreting some historical event—in other words, revising knowledge about that event only. This is not to say, however, that revision is done for revision’s sake; it is done when new evidence or new interpretations call for a revision._

>_Historians have revised and continue to revise what we know about the Holocaust. But their revision entails refinement of detailed knowledge about events, rarely complete denial of the events themselves, and certainly not denial of the cumulation of events known as the Holocaust._

> _Holocaust deniers claim that there is a force field of dogma around the Holocaust—set up and run by the Jews themselves—shielding it from any change. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not the public is aware of the academic debates that take place in any field of study, Holocaust scholars discuss and argue over any number of points as research continues. Deniers do know this._

*   **CLAIM: Zyklon B is just a delousing agent, it can’t kill people! It was used to clean clothes! Also, even if it was lethal, why do some “gas chambers” [lack the blue stain Zyklon B leaves on walls](https://i.imgur.com/X5n9l6f.jpg)?**
    *   First of all, Zyklon B can absolutely be used to kill. Just Wikipedia it.
    *   Secondly, Zyklon B must be used in higher concentrations to kill lice than to kill humans. It’s more economical to use less gas, so the blue gas residue wouldn’t form as easily in gas chambers.
    *   Third, Zyklon B residue can be easily cleaned from walls, and Nazis made every effort to destroy evidence of the Holocaust as Soviet soldiers marched in.
    *   Fourth, even this stupid image acknowledges there are traces of (again, easily-cleanable) Zyklon B in the gas chamber.
*   **CLAIM: The Auschwitz memorial plaque death figure suddenly [CHANGED from 4 million dead to 1.5 million dead](https://i.imgur.com/P1scrSN.jpg). What are they hiding?**
    *   The 4 million figure was initially published by the Soviet State Commission in 1945, long before any reliable estimates were available.
    *   As new information is made available, historians revise general knowledge of the subject. This is how the field of history works.
*   **CLAIM: The “gas chamber” doors were [made from WOOD](https://i.imgur.com/iQ4blnJ.jpg). They clearly weren’t meant to contain people.**
    *   The wooden doors presented in these images led to delousing rooms, not gas chambers. These are literally just pictures of wooden doors. It is not known what the original gas chamber doors looked like because Nazis destroyed those facilities before Soviet soldiers arrived.
    *   [This door](https://i.imgur.com/A0T8lNZ.jpg), however, was found in the building yard of Auschwitz and is believed to be the kind used in their gas chambers.
    *   The doors may have been destroyed, but the receipts for those doors were not. [This receipt ](https://i.imgur.com/1ZRz9FO.png)calls for an order _“on 6/3/1943 concerning the delivery of a gas tight door 100 x 192 cm for cellar I of Krematorium III, to be produced to the identical pattern and dimensions as the cellar door of Krematorium II which is situated opposite, with peephole of double 8 mm glass, with rubber sealing strip and frame.”_
*   **CLAIM: The camp crematoriums could not have handled that many bodies! It takes 4-8 hours to cremate a body.**
    *   It takes 1-5 hours to cremate a _civilian_ body at a _professional service_. It takes far less time to cremate a body in an industrial furnace when speed takes priority over cleanliness and decency.
    *   Also, Holocaust victims were not cremated one at a time. Toph and Sons (the makers of the Auschwitz crematoriums) claimed their units could handle 4-6 bodies an hour.
    * When crematoriums failed, they used burning pits.
> _The bodies were ". . . sorted according to their combustibility: for the bodies of the well-nourished were to help burn the emaciated. Under the direction of the Kapos, the bearers began sorting the dead into four stacks. The largest consisted mainly of strong men, the next in size of women, then came children, and lastly a stack of dead Mussulmans, emaciated and nothing but skin and bones. This technique was called 'express work,' a designation thought up by the Kommandoführers and originating from experiments carried out in crematorium 5 in the autumn of 1943. The purpose of these experiments was to find a way of saving coke. . . . Thus the bodies of two Mussulmans were cremated together with those of two children or the bodies of two well-nourished men together with that of an emaciated woman, each load consisting of three, or sometimes, four bodies."_

~ Filip Müller, Sonderkommando
    
*   **CLAIM: The Red Cross visited a “death camp” and [found that it wasn’t inhumane](https://i.imgur.com/kIACOBc.jpg)!**
    *   The Red Cross inspectors were not allowed to visit the parts of the camp intended for genocide and the Nazis had prepared their camp for scrutiny, deporting the near-dead and sanitizing the presented facilities.
    *   Additionally, that letter tallying camp deaths is attributable to the International Tracing Service, not the Red Cross. They tally estimates, not records, and are not historically relevant. 

> _"I repeatedly witnessed guided tours of civilians and also of commissions of the Red Cross and other parties within the camp, and I was able to ascertain that the camp leadership arranged it masterfully to conduct these guided tours in such a way that the people being guided around did not see anything about inhuman treatment. The main camp was shown only and in this main camp there were so-called show blocks, particularly block 13, that were especially prepared for such guided tours and that were equipped like a normal soldier's barracks with beds that had sheets on them, and well-functioning washrooms."_

~ SS-Untersturmführer Hans Münch

*   **CLAIM: The prisoners at Auschwitz [had a swimming pool](https://jan27.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/auschwitz-swimming-pool-ladder.jpg)! And a band! And a brothel! And a goddamn soccer team! And a dentist! Some prison, huh?**
    *   All these amenities were present at Auschwitz I - the main camp, which held POWs, not Holocaust victims. The infamous extermination camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau. Also, the band and “pool” were for the guards exclusively. The “pool’s” main purpose [was actually that of a backup water reservoir](http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#auschwitzswimmingpool).
    *   Even if these amenities were present at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it wouldn’t disprove anything concerning the Holocaust.
    
