Simple challenge to bombsaway on alleged physical "evidence of a genocidal program"

[Hektor]

if the core samples indicated substantial amounts of cremains would this change anything for you?

Probably not, though it would help the other side sound less unconvincing.

The problem with doing it now is that they've constructed this narrative from the beginning and looked to justify it later. At no point in the last 80 years has there been any responsible authority with the integrity to do the right thing from the start and presume innocence before giving a guilty verdict on the basis of the most thorough and vigorious attempts to invesitgate the claims with no priors. This was never done.

Even when they do sham investigations under the guise of authority, whether it be at Auschwitz, Treblinka, or Belzec, they do so looking to confirm prior biases. So no, even if they did a study (as they've poorly attempted to do in the past) to pass it off (in reality with meagre evidence) I would have a tough time believing them, because they had no credibility in the first place.
......Even after the action was complete the Jews which Kube says were going to remain (they weren't literally killing all of them) because of their usefulness, Kube notes his personal preference was to kill them:

"Of course, it would be most preferable for me and the SD to finally eliminate Jewry in the General District of White Ruthenia after the economic claims of the Wehrmacht have ceased to exist."

PS-3428. IMT, Vol. 32, p. 281.

From this we can determine that the Jews which remained were not to be killed right after as, I'm sure, the exterminationists would assume since they claim the plan was to kill "all Jews". Yet Kube had to stress his own opinion, which would've been unnecessary if that were the case.

What's your definition of a reprisal? I suppose if we're broadening the definition enough, the Holocaust in orthodox terms could be considered a reprisal action (for the Jews starting the war, bringing Bolshevism into the world, etc)

I suppose you could. Seems raucous to me. Yet still, this doesn't mean the "reprisals" - however you define the extent - was in connection with a plan to exterminate anyone.

Reprisal is a punishment for previous hostile or unlawful actions. Those can be collective punishments. The purpose is immanent change of behavior. E.g.: Partisans kill civilians or soldiers - military authorities pick up some people suspected of supporting the partisans and execute them publicly. Intention is to deter that kind of activity. It should be noted that people are also coerced by the partisans to join and support them. And that can lead to a competition of terror as well as a spiral of violence.

Now if one decontextualizes this, it gets easy to portray this as "atrocities against innocent civilians" ... If you dramatize it often enough people will take it for granted. From thereon it gets easy to style this as something more sinister such as an 'extermination program'. Through repetition this will be framed in the minds of people and now anything they pick up in terms of information will be interpreted as being part of an 'extermination program'.

It seems biases and prejudices matter, if you can manipulate them, this will determine in what direction things will be interpreted by the public. People take for granted that the extermination thesis is true, so any questioning of this, becomes suspicious to them.

"The Holocaust" is also designed as a package deal. The front product is "extermination of Jews in gas chambers"... but anything is included from registering Jews over deporting and interning them... any mortality is viewed as intentional then. Circumstances of war will be mostly ignored.

So the issue is that people start with the conclusions they have been conditioned to expect and then interpret any evidential information in that way. Information that doesn't fit the picture is also ignored, even if it is noticed by them. There is no way that one can get an anyhow realistic picture that way.

[Butterfangers]

Reprisal is a punishment for previous hostile or unlawful actions. Those can be collective punishments. The purpose is immanent change of behavior. E.g.: Partisans kill civilians or soldiers - military authorities pick up some people suspected of supporting the partisans and execute them publicly. Intention is to deter that kind of activity. It should be noted that people are also coerced by the partisans to join and support them. And that can lead to a competition of terror as well as a spiral of violence.

Now if one decontextualizes this, it gets easy to portray this as "atrocities against innocent civilians" ... If you dramatize it often enough people will take it for granted. From thereon it gets easy to style this as something more sinister such as an 'extermination program'. Through repetition this will be framed in the minds of people and now anything they pick up in terms of information will be interpreted as being part of an 'extermination program'.

This is why they need the 'gas chambers'. The so-called "Holocaust by bullets" is easily explained in the context of the greatest war in history, as a desperate response to relentless sabotage and terrorism from partisans. Reprisal killings were by no means unique to the "Nazis" and, strictly speaking, were also legal per international law at the time. If it was just "by bullets", then there really wouldn't be anything at all to make movies about, erect monuments about, etc. to highlight Jewish suffering. Everyone suffered in WW2. No 'gas', no one cares.

[Hektor]

Reprisal is a punishment for previous hostile or unlawful actions. Those can be collective punishments. The purpose is immanent change of behavior. ....

This is why they need the 'gas chambers'. The so-called "Holocaust by bullets" is easily explained in the context of the greatest war in history, as a desperate response to relentless sabotage and terrorism from partisans. Reprisal killings were by no means unique to the "Nazis" and, strictly speaking, were also legal per international law at the time. If it was just "by bullets", then there really wouldn't be anything at all to make movies about, erect monuments about, etc. to highlight Jewish suffering. Everyone suffered in WW2. No 'gas', no one cares.

Indeed. Shooting is by far too common in movies. It doesn't grasp the imagination. But putting 1000 people into a gas chamber and then throw in some gas.... that will grasp the imagination of people far more. With reprisal killings, you also get a context and people may just settle it in their minds. So not enough to get them outraged about. But with the gas chamber narrative you can tell a really outrageous stories.
1. Them Nazis hated Jews for no reason.
2. They made war and then ripped perfectly innocent Jews out of their lives.
3. Putting them on trains to concentration camps.
4. Their they tricked them to believe they'd take a shower.
5. But the showers did put gas on them.
6. After that the gas chambers cloaked as shower rooms were emptied of corpses.
7. And the corpses were moved to crematoria and then made vanished completely.

Far more scary and diabolical story to be told there. Add to this astronomic numbers and one got a really outrageous narrative that can easily be weaponized.

What is important is:
1. Innocent Jews.
2. Hated for no good reason (sometimes envy is cited, because Jews were so talented and successful).
3. Killed in a horrific way (that gassing would be rather humane most people won't realize).
4. The corpses vanished, they are nowhere to be found.
5. Miraculously Israel reemerged as new state 3 years later.

It's of course a counter-narrative to the crucifixion of Christ. Only a very secularized version of course.

It puts Jews on the pedestal to be deified and hence be shielded from critique for most people. Critiquing Jews is received like blasphemy by many people. Responses clearly show that. So what is disguised as moralizing historiography, is actually a powerful religious narrative.

[bombsaway]

Hi I compiled statements by Mattogno about ash found in Kola's drilling samples, looking at 3 different books. This seems to be the pertinent claim re Belzec, lots of human ash found in the graves. That's what stuck out when I read the descriptions. https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety. ... tions.html (that most of the graves don't contain intact corpses does not contradict the orthodox narrative)

I looked through 3 books and tried to find all the times Mattogno addressed the issue

Mattogno's Belzec book https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/09-b.pdf

But the graphs of the analyses of the 137 drill cores presented by Kola
show that the ash in the graves is normally intermingled with sand, that in
more than half of the samples the layer of ash and sand is extremely thin,
268
and that at times the ash is close to being completely absent.
269 Furthermore,
out of the 236 samples, 99 are irrelevant, and among the 137 relevant ones
more than half show only a very thin layer of sand and ash, whereas among
the remainder the percentage of sand is not less than 50%, and the thickness of
the sand/ash layer varies greatly..

from "Extermination Camps Aktion Reinhardt" (removed from handbooks site for some reason but available here: https://archive.org/download/Exterminat ... t_Long.pdf

“In his Bełżec book Mattogno claimed that ‘the graphs of the analyses of the 137 drill cores presented by Kola show that the ash in the
graves is normally intermingled with sand, that in more than half of the
samples the layer of ash and sand is extremely thin,’ and that furthermore
‘out of the 236 samples, 99 are irrelevant, and among the 137 relevant ones
more than half show only a very thin layer of sand and ash, whereas among
the remainder the percentage of sand is not less than 50%, and the thickness of the sand/ash layer varies greatly.’ However, he never undertook to
explain how he had managed to determine, on hand of the schematic representations of core samples in Kola’s book , how high the ash content detected in each of the samples shown was.” (p. 511)
Muehlenkamp knows perfectly well that in the book in question I
explained precisely which samples I was referring to.3143 So how did I
establish the contents of these samples? Very easily: based on the respective captions published by Kola!3144

Nothing in this book. https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/28-torc.pdf

Is this it? Did I miss anything or is there other literature I should look at?

If you don't care enough about what is true to actually spend the time fully understanding the Revisionist narrative, you are going to keep ending up in the trap of "feeling" like the establishment case is stronger, not realizing (or not caring) that the only reason you feel this way is because you do not yet understand what Revisionists are actually saying (or the context for why they are saying it) on the matter. If you don't care to learn, you won't. Simple as.

I've actually been trying to understand the revisionist narrative about what happened. Based on my reading of Mattogno and Kues, I assumed you all believed that millions of Jews were resettled and interned in Russia, but what I've been hearing is that they may never have made it there, but no one knows for sure.

I believe that events happening to a few million people should be traceable through documents and witness statements, so it's difficult for me to accept a giant question mark.

I'm sorry I can't respond to all your questions and long posts. I'm not trying to dodge anything but my time is short these days. I'm still compiling revisionist analysis about the ash in Kola's drilling samples. I assume there's more than this.

[Lamprecht]

Did I miss anything or is there other literature I should look at?

Yes you missed the 10 questions posted in the OP. You should look at the literature by the individuals that claim to have done archaeological investigations of these sites. You'll notice they fail to produce evidence of any huge mass graves.

I've actually been trying to understand the revisionist narrative about what happened.

It's simple: over 1 million weren't dumped into pits at T2+B+S. "Where did they go?" is a separate question and actually doesn't need to be answered. However, the documents do describe a resettlement policy called the "Final Solution" that was later "postponed until after the war" which was lost.

I assumed you all believed that millions of Jews were resettled and interned in Russia, but what I've been hearing is that they may never have made it there, but no one knows for sure.

Focus on the alleged pits please. They were either dumped into pits or were not.

I believe that events happening to a few million people should be traceable through documents and witness statements, so it's difficult for me to accept a giant question mark.

But you do realize that documents can be so easily lost/destroyed/faked, yes? Nearly all of the outbound train records are missing. We can only guess if they all said "empty" or "full of Jews."
Witness statements are rare in general. You were asked a few questions about the Transnistria statements and dodged them.

I'm sorry I can't respond to all your questions and long posts. I'm not trying to dodge anything but my time is short these days. I'm still compiling revisionist analysis about the ash in Kola's drilling samples. I assume there's more than this.

There is no shame in updating answers later.
Maybe pick just one "huge mass grave" from T2/B/S that you think has the most evidence available for it, answer "zero" for all other questions, and make your case for that pit. Then we can move on to another.
Currently it appears that your case is extremely weak. Remember: the pits absolutely must exist for your narrative to be true. Documents and testimony do not need to exist. In fact, the existence of documents / testimony (very weak forms of evidence that can easily be faked) can never be enough to replace the need for physical evidence when it must exist.
A resettlement won't produce physical evidence in the form of massive pits full of human remains. So yes, really, it can only be explained by documents/testimony OR inferred based on the lack of pits. I'm saying, if there's no pits, they went somewhere else. It doesn't matter where they went, outside of "mass grave pits."
Either (a) the pits exist or (b) they went somewhere else.
Since a is clearly false, we must accept b.

[Lamprecht]

Note: these are the "core samples" of Sobibor.





This does not appear to represent a single "huge mass grave" of 1/100 of 1%. Reminder:

Ten Simple Questions for bombsaway:

1 – Which of the 15 alleged Treblinka II mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
2 – Which of the 24 alleged Sobibor mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
3 – Which of the 33 alleged Belzec mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
4-6 – Same as 1-3 but instead 1,500 human beings (OR 7,500 lbs / 3,400 kg of remains): __?__
7-9 – Same as 1-3 but instead 15,000 human beings (OR 75,000 lbs / 34,000 kg of remains): __?__
10 – How many of the 72 alleged graves at T2+S+B can you forensically* prove contain at least one milligram of human remains: __?__

[Nazgul]

I assumed you all believed that millions of Jews were resettled and interned in Russia, but what I've been hearing is that they may never have made it there, but no one knows for sure.

Perhaps you could contact Professor Peter Gatrell (University of Manchester) link who might have further answers.

Professor Peter Gatrell writes:

Around a quarter of a million of Jews managed to escape in 1939 from Nazi-occupied Poland to territory under Soviet control. In 1941, the Nazi invasion of Poland, Belarus and the Baltic States trapped many of them, but as many as one million Jews may have been saved by their evacuation into the Soviet interior in 1941-42. In due course most of them—along with surviving Jews from Romania—made their way to Palestine.

Likewise, hundreds of thousands of Poles—soldiers and civilians alike—were either deported or escaped to Soviet Central Asia or to Siberia

link

The JUST Act report writes:

"The 1939 Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic national census registered 375,092 Jewish residents. After the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939 and the annexation of Polish territory under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Jewish population rose to an estimated one million, including 404,500 in what is now eastern Belarus and more than 600,000 in present day western Belarus. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic government is reported to have evacuated approximately 220,000 Jewish residents, primarily from present day eastern Belarus, to other regions of the USSR in 1941 following the Nazi invasion earlier that year."

link

If Gatrell is correct and the JUST report is also correct, a million Jews arrived in Belarus and fled to the interior of Russia. It is also known, at Kiev 100 thousand Jews fled to Russia. It is said that those that did not were shot at a ravine in Kiev.

If so this means there was few Jews left for labour in those land. Butterfangers and I have shown that there were large numbers of zwangarbeitslager für Juden in Ostland and Ukraine, many not even having names, lasting for short periods. It begs the question of where these Jews came from.

Korherr confirms 1.2 million Jews headed to the Russian East.

Radio Prague confirms some of these deportations to the Russian East.

Tens of thousands Of Jews deported to work in Belarus and in the Baltic states.
The first deportation of Jews to Belarus took place on November 14, 1941. The transport garnered little attention among the Czech public. “The operation took place without complications,” can be read in one of the contemporary Prague Police reports. In total, 22,000 Czech Jews were deported to Belarus during the war.

link

The person responsible for these deportations was Fritz Sauckel. Sauckel worked directly under Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring within the Four Year Plan Office, obtaining and allocating labour for German industry and agriculture. The RSHA gave logistic support.

[Otium]

I looked through 3 books and tried to find all the times Mattogno addressed the issue

Mattogno's Belzec book https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/09-b.pdf

The entire 4th chapter is dedicated to "Bełżec in Polish Archeological Research", and addresses Kola.

Nothing in this book. https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/28-torc.pdf

I don't know whether you're lying, or just didn't look hard enough. I'm sorry to accuse you of such a thing if it's untrue, but the only other option is the latter. If you actually looked in this book, which is:


Holocaust Handbooks, Volume 28:
Carlo Mattogno: The "Operation Reinhardt" Camps Treblinka, Sobibór, Bełżec—Black Propaganda, Archeological Research, Expected Material Evidence
https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=28
https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/28-torc.pdf

Then you would've seen that Kola is addressed in Part Two which deals with archeological research, Kola is dealt with specifically on pages 197-213.

Is this it? Did I miss anything or is there other literature I should look at?

You missed this book:


Holocaust Handbooks, Volume 43:
Carlo Mattogno: Rudolf Reder versus Kurt Gerstein—Two False Testimonies on the Bełżec Camp Analyzed
2nd edition
https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=43

Kola's study actually demolishes the witness statements, and inadvertently supports revisionism.

And these two articles:

Carlo Mattogno, "Belzec or the Holocaust Controversy of Roberto Muehlenkamp"
https://codoh.com/library/document/belzec-or-the-holocaust-controversy-of-roberto/en/


Tom Moran, "Belzec/Kola – Going to Extremes to Sell the Lie: A Review"
https://codoh.com/library/document/belzeckola-going-to-extremes-to-sell-the-lie/en/

You also seemed to ignore this thread I posted in another response to you:

Why it doesn't matter that existence of mass graves at Belzec cannot be proven
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13757&p=100584#p100584

[bombsaway]

Did I miss anything or is there other literature I should look at?

Yes you missed the 10 questions posted in the OP

Obviously Kola's study wasn't evidenced enough by normal criminal standards (this would probably require DNA testing, some kind of oversight by third party/defense lawyers + governmental involvement) to answer those questions. What I'm trying to determine is if his study, taken at face value, contradicts the orthodox position.

If Gatrell is correct and the JUST report is also correct, a million Jews arrived in Belarus and fled to the interior of Russia. It is also known, at Kiev 100 thousand Jews fled to Russia. It is said that those that did not were shot at a ravine in Kiev.

I think Gatrell is talking about Jews that fled in the wake of the Nazi advance. So I think the question concerns those Jews who fell into Germany's domain and were then deported.

Korherr confirms 1.2 million Jews headed to the Russian East.

To be precise, Korherr reports 1,449,692 Jews received special treatment / were transported "from the Eastern Provinces to the Russian East"

I don't know whether you're lying, or just didn't look hard enough. I'm sorry to accuse you of such a thing if it's untrue, but the only other option is the latter.

Yeah I'm aware Mattagno has done a lot of work on Kola, but as I said in my post the issue I am looking into is the alleged presence of cremains in the core samples. This was in response to your assertion that "Kola's samples prove the opposite of Holocaust orthodoxy claims".

[Lamprecht]

Did I miss anything or is there other literature I should look at?

Yes you missed the 10 questions posted in the OP

Obviously Kola's study wasn't evidenced enough by normal criminal standards (this would probably require DNA testing, some kind of oversight by third party/defense lawyers + governmental involvement) to answer those questions.

Nope. DNA testing is unnecessary here. Review the questions:

1 – Which of the 15 alleged Treblinka II mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
2 – Which of the 24 alleged Sobibor mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
3 – Which of the 33 alleged Belzec mass graves can you forensically* prove contain the remains of at least 150 human beings (OR 750 lbs / 340 kg of remains): __?__
4-6 – Same as 1-3 but instead 1,500 human beings (OR 7,500 lbs / 3,400 kg of remains): __?__
7-9 – Same as 1-3 but instead 15,000 human beings (OR 75,000 lbs / 34,000 kg of remains): __?__
10 – How many of the 72 alleged graves at T2+S+B can you forensically* prove contain at least one milligram of human remains: __?__

You never made any attempt to answer the questions. I never asked for a DNA test of remains. If you can show a massive pit full of the burnt remains of thousands of human beings at Belzec/Sobibor/Treblinka 2, then that would be satisfactory in regards to the questions. But you can't.

What I'm trying to determine is if his study, taken at face value, contradicts the orthodox position.

Consider using the study to answer the questions. Consider that the orthodox position claims massive pits full of human remains exist at these sites, but such pits can't actually be shown to exist.

Consider, what quantity of human remains has actually been shown. Not drawn, but photographed.

What you're most likely trying to do is something I've seen many times: make it seem as though the level of evidence required is extreme, absurd, etc. "You want photographs of every single ounce of human remains and all of it DNA tested..."

Nope. There's nothing extreme about it. Actually, all of the guidelines available on mass graves are more strict than what I'm asking for.

How about you pick one "huge mass grave" from T2/B/S and then we can go try to figure out how many people's remains [at least] are in there.

[bombsaway]

Consider, what quantity of human remains has actually been shown. Not drawn, but photographed.

No, the alleged ashes haven't photographed as far as I know, so none of these mass graves have been proven to exist by the criteria you have set forth.

[Butterfangers]

No, the alleged ashes haven't photographed as far as I know, so none of these mass graves have been proven to exist by the criteria you have set forth.

Brave (and perhaps even respectable) for you to admit this. Note that the criteria is entirely reasonable. This means that reasonable, physical evidence of Jewish extermination at these sites has not been shown to exist.

[Lamprecht]

Consider, what quantity of human remains has actually been shown. Not drawn, but photographed.

No, the alleged ashes haven't photographed as far as I know, so none of these mass graves have been proven to exist by the criteria you have set forth.

I can't take credit for that. Although I'd say it's obvious. I mean, if anyone could draw shapes on a paper and say that confirms the existence of huge mass graves, that would open a huge can of worms.
From the OP:

Mass grave excavation guidelines / The “Mass graves don’t produce photographed bodies” lie
viewtopic.php?t=12889

For a mass grave to be documented, the dirt must be removed from the pit (excavated) and then the remains photographed. Additionally, the remains can be removed (exhumed) to be further examined. The only exceptions in the literature that I found are for special cases where this new information (the existence of mass graves) would potentially inflame ethnic/tribal resentments and result in reprisal actions. This obviously doesn't apply because the claim that hundreds of thousands of Jews were dumped into pits is "proven fact" (illegal to publicly dispute) so it's not going to result in targeted attacks.

Does this seem unreasonable to you? Don't you think it's important that shapes drawn on paper remains inadequate to prove that actual human remains exists in a specific place? To me it seems reasonable, which is probably why there was unanimous agreement on that in the literature, but not on the exact nature of the photographs. Otherwise there could be all sorts of claims about mass graves. Anyone could make up claims about them.

No, the alleged ashes haven't photographed as far as I know, so none of these mass graves have been proven to exist by the criteria you have set forth.

Brave (and perhaps even respectable) for you to admit this. Note that the criteria is entirely reasonable. This means that reasonable, physical evidence of Jewish extermination at these sites has not been shown to exist.

DESPITE attempts to do so... yes. There is no "actually nobody tried to find any mass graves at these sites" excuse. Each of the three sites as investigated at least once. So they looked and failed to produce anything of substance. This further destroys the credibility of anyone claiming that there are huge mass graves here.

Mass graves that MUST exist for their story to be true.

[Otium]

Yeah I'm aware Mattagno has done a lot of work on Kola, but as I said in my post the issue I am looking into is the alleged presence of cremains in the core samples. This was in response to your assertion that "Kola's samples prove the opposite of Holocaust orthodoxy claims".

You claimed there was "nothing" in volume 28 of the Holocaust Handbooks on Kola. I pointed out that this was wrong.

Kola's entire study disproves or at the very least severely contradicts the Holocaust orthodoxy; in the least because it shows that the witnesses were wrong, plain and simple, and thus they're totally unreliable. It also indicates that the graves were not as claimed by the witnesses, and much less exists than what is claimed. Though no proper study probing deeper into the ground has been conducted to confirm this for sure.

No, the alleged ashes haven't photographed as far as I know, so none of these mass graves have been proven to exist by the criteria you have set forth.

Brave (and perhaps even respectable) for you to admit this. Note that the criteria is entirely reasonable. This means that reasonable, physical evidence of Jewish extermination at these sites has not been shown to exist.

Muehlenkamp also admits that Kola's study is inadequate to prove Holocaust claims. But that hasn't stopped exterminationists - particularly laymen twitter types - from citing Kola as definitive "evidence".

[bombsaway]

Yeah I'm aware Mattagno has done a lot of work on Kola, but as I said in my post the issue I am looking into is the alleged presence of cremains in the core samples. This was in response to your assertion that "Kola's samples prove the opposite of Holocaust orthodoxy claims".

You claimed there was "nothing" in volume 28 of the Holocaust Handbooks on Kola. I pointed out that this was wrong.

No I was just looking at mention of ash in the core samples: "I compiled statements by Mattogno about ash found in Kola's drilling samples, looking at 3 different books. "

It's a topic he spends remarkably little time on, given its centrality to orthodox claims. I'm waiting for someone to show me more info but he confirms that some illustrations show up to 50% ash concentration, which is a lot. So it would seem sufficient quantities of ash are indicated, but I can't find a high resolution photos to look at.

Muehlenkamp also admits that Kola's study is inadequate to prove Holocaust claims. But that hasn't stopped exterminationists - particularly laymen twitter types - from citing Kola as definitive "evidence".

Such a study isn't sufficient to "prove" mass graves, yes because it doesn't seem like Kola was trying to. Here's the study: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocau ... t1174.html

In the first page he outlines the scope of the dig. It was about commemoration and helping the museum, not about finally dispelling all doubts about the gravesites.

One could say of course that this is by design, because he was "in on it", and so illustrations were the best he could do, but this is speculation.