BA's case for orthodoxy

[fireofice]

The source is the Cornides report, which is what we were discussing.

I was confused because it was worded differently in the link you posted. Regardless, this is all hearsay. The writer of the diary isn't a "witness" to anything that happened. He is just saying that other people said stuff. He also doesn't even give us the names of these other people he supposedly talked to. Eyewitness testimony takes precedence over hearsay, and this is a much more poor category of hearsay than usual. If you are reaching to poor hearsay testimony because the actual eyewitness testimonies are so poor, that means the holocaust probably didn't happen.

[Hektor]

If we accept Cornides' account as factual, the question is is the smoke a result of property being destroyed or human bodies? No witness testimony supports the former, but it does the latter

The point is the claim is most consistent with property. If you want to say bodies, then that works just fine too, since the smell he ascribes to it is wrong. Either way, we can't accept it for what you want.

"They are told that they have to be deloused and then they have to take off their clothes and then If you come into a room, you first let a heat wave in and then there is already a small dose of the gas. That's enough for anesthesia. Then the rest will follow. And then they'll be burned right away."

Why do you post no source? Randomly throwing out quotes with no source or at least a reference to who is saying this is unacceptable.

It must not only seem to match up, it must match up. But then the cop out will "Oh, bad memory"..... they are bending the story, but get away with it, because they constantly repeat it. "Repeat a Lie often enough"... Where did I hear that before?

[bombsaway]

The source is the Cornides report, which is what we were discussing.

I was confused because it was worded differently in the link you posted. Regardless, this is all hearsay. The writer of the diary isn't a "witness" to anything that happened. He is just saying that other people said stuff. He also doesn't even give us the names of these other people he supposedly talked to. Eyewitness testimony takes precedence over hearsay, and this is a much more poor category of hearsay than usual. If you are reaching to poor hearsay testimony because the actual eyewitness testimonies are so poor, that means the holocaust probably didn't happen.

The report is basically about the experiences of a German officer passing through the Belzec area and investigating what's going on by talking to local people, mostly other Germans. The conversations he reports suggest that Jews are being sent en masse into Belzec and being killed there. Not passing through it. I guess you think it's likely that Germans living and working around this camp would be completely misinformed and perhaps delusional? They didn't notice people leaving the camp? Cornides himself spends at least 3 days there and doesn't see anything.

His description of a convoy entering the camp shows how obvious thousands of Jews leaving would have been to people.

At 12:19  p.m.  I saw a freight train enter the station. On the roofs and steps sat armed guards. You could see from afar that the wagons were packed with human beings. I turned around and walked all the way to the train : it included 35 cattle wagons and a passenger car. In each of the wagons were at least 60 Jews (when transporting soldiers or prisoners, 40 people are put there, but here the benches had been removed and you could see that the prisoners were standing, huddled together others). The doors were ajar, the windows were screened with barbed wire. Of the few men who were there, most were old; the other people were women, young girls and children. Many children crowded around the windows and in the half-open door. The youngest were probably no more than two years old. As soon as the train stopped, the Jews tried to pass bottles outside for water. But SS guards stood on both sides of the train, so no one could approach it

[fireofice]

The source is the Cornides report, which is what we were discussing.

I was confused because it was worded differently in the link you posted. Regardless, this is all hearsay. The writer of the diary isn't a "witness" to anything that happened. He is just saying that other people said stuff. He also doesn't even give us the names of these other people he supposedly talked to. Eyewitness testimony takes precedence over hearsay, and this is a much more poor category of hearsay than usual. If you are reaching to poor hearsay testimony because the actual eyewitness testimonies are so poor, that means the holocaust probably didn't happen.

The report is basically about the experiences of a German officer passing through the Belzec area and investigating what's going on by talking to local people, mostly other Germans. The conversations he reports suggest that Jews are being sent en masse into Belzec and being killed there. Not passing through it. I guess you think it's likely that Germans living and working around this camp would be completely misinformed and perhaps delusional? They didn't notice people leaving the camp? Cornides himself spends at least 3 days there and doesn't see anything.

His description of a convoy entering the camp shows how obvious thousands of Jews leaving would have been to people.

At 12:19  p.m.  I saw a freight train enter the station. On the roofs and steps sat armed guards. You could see from afar that the wagons were packed with human beings. I turned around and walked all the way to the train : it included 35 cattle wagons and a passenger car. In each of the wagons were at least 60 Jews (when transporting soldiers or prisoners, 40 people are put there, but here the benches had been removed and you could see that the prisoners were standing, huddled together others). The doors were ajar, the windows were screened with barbed wire. Of the few men who were there, most were old; the other people were women, young girls and children. Many children crowded around the windows and in the half-open door. The youngest were probably no more than two years old. As soon as the train stopped, the Jews tried to pass bottles outside for water. But SS guards stood on both sides of the train, so no one could approach it

People living around the camp may just be repeating rumors.

Others could be lying and telling scary campfire stories to frighten people. I have no doubt that Auschwitz Nazi guards were telling Jewish inmates false scary stories on what was happening to other Jews, saying things like "See that smoke coming from the chimney? That's from gassed Jews being burned."

Of course, we can't be sure in this case because it's all hearsay and anonymous.

[Hektor]

People living around the camp may just be repeating rumors.

Others could be lying and telling scary campfire stories to frighten people. I have no doubt that Auschwitz Nazi guards were telling Jewish inmates false scary stories on what was happening to other Jews, saying things like "See that smoke coming from the chimney? That's from gassed Jews being burned."

Of course, we can't be sure in this case because it's all hearsay and anonymous.

It's more likely this came from long-term camp inmates trying to scare the newbies. Probably trying to have some fun with the frightened newbies.
Some may indeed have taken that serious. Especially since there were some real cases of cremations (which were never in dispute).

[bombsaway]

It's more likely this came from long-term camp inmates trying to scare the newbies.

Is that your explanation for this as well?

A Sudeten-German foreman who was sitting at the same table commented: “Recently there was a drunk SS man sitting in our canteen, crying like a child. He said he was on duty in Belzec and if it went on like this for another 14 days he would kill himself because he couldn't take it any longer."

It has to go further than this though, because within the revisionist framework large amounts of Jews were continuously leaving Belzec, just as they were sent there, yet no one told Cornides this was happening (the only commentary on trains coming out of Belzec is that they are empty, scrubbed clean). Do you think there was a conspiracy to hide this information from him?

[fireofice]

It has to go further than this though, because within the revisionist framework large amounts of Jews were continuously leaving Belzec, just as they were sent there, yet no one told Cornides this was happening (the only commentary on trains coming out of Belzec is that they are empty, scrubbed clean). Do you think there was a conspiracy to hide this information from him?

Again, you are completely missing the point. I offered one possible explanation, but we can't be sure about it. For all we know, the author of the diary is completely delusional and making stuff up. Maybe he is a hostile witness and just outright lying about stuff. We can't tell because all he has is anonymous hearsay. We can't check anything he writes. This "evidence" is not good for much, much less for the enormity of the alleged crime.

[Hektor]

It's more likely this came from long-term camp inmates trying to scare the newbies.

Is that your explanation for this as well?

A Sudeten-German foreman who was sitting at the same table commented: “Recently there was a drunk SS man sitting in our canteen, crying like a child. He said he was on duty in Belzec and if it went on like this for another 14 days he would kill himself because he couldn't take it any longer."

It has to go further than this though, because within the revisionist framework large amounts of Jews were continuously leaving Belzec, just as they were sent there, yet no one told Cornides this was happening (the only commentary on trains coming out of Belzec is that they are empty, scrubbed clean). Do you think there was a conspiracy to hide this information from him?

My explanation for unsourced quotes is that they are motivated by debating tactics trying to increase the viscosity and reduce the speed of debates. It's a time wasting tactic as well.

There is people that can't cope with work related stress in any organization. Are you seriously claiming here that people that commit suicide due to work related pressures, stress, problems, because their organization is engaged in mass killing prisoners?

And well "Empty, scrubbed, clean trains" are evidence for exactly what?
And perhaps you should find out about the location of Belzec during WW2. E.g. why there may have been rail cars leaving empty, IF the purpose was to send people further Eastward of Belzec. Your argument from ignorance turns out to hold no water.

[Wilbur]

If Cornides saw or observed anything important he should have written it up in a personal diary entry. Odd that he didn't as far as I could tell.

[curioussoul]

The Cornides "diary" simply repeats the same extermination propaganda churned out by the Polish and Jewish rumor mills all throughout the war and which was circulated all over Europe and for practically every single German camp. Since it merely represents more unsubstantiated hearsay and furthermore was published in the late 1950' by a different author claiming that the notes stem from "Wilhelm Cornides" and date to August 1942, they have virtually 0 evidentiary value.

[bombsaway]

The Cornides report predates the widespread news of killing at the Reinhard camps which only began to widely circulate towards the end of 42.

As for using "unsubstantiated hearsay" we can for comparison purposes examine some of the revisionist witness evidence for resettlement as shown in the Kues series

https://codoh.com/library/series/eviden ... -the-1/en/

As you can see, he mostly uses Jewish sources (people confined or held prisoner by the Germans) and none of these sources directly or indirectly state resettlement happening, rather just property of Jews arriving in the East, or reporting on (unsourced, unsubstantiated) rumors of Jews being killed. Kues does not provide any witness testimony (whether sourced or unsourced) of Jews being resettled.

Basically what makes the Cornides report convincing (if taken at face value) is that the sources he uses are Germans living and working near the camp. These were people who could freely move about, ask questions, make observations, as opposed to the Jewish sources Kues uses in 3 part series. The most damning part of the report, and one no one here has addressed, is that it would have been just as evident to people that Jews were entering as leaving. And if Jews were leaving Belzec en masse, then no mass killing. But Cornides doesn't report on this, which is why I posited that within the revisionist framework, it would seem that not only were local Germans spreading wild and horrendous rumors about their own people, but they were also actively lying to Cornides about not seeing massive transports leaving the camp.

[borjastick]

bombsaway did all the inbound prisoners arrive in train transports? If yes what sort of transports were they? Cattle car type arrangements as was usual? If so when the trains left how would some local peasants working in the fields or in the town up the road know if they were empty or full?

[bombsaway]

bombsaway did all the inbound prisoners arrive in train transports? If yes what sort of transports were they? Cattle car type arrangements as was usual? If so when the trains left how would some local peasants working in the fields or in the town up the road know if they were empty or full?

Cornides doesn't draw from local peasants, but as I said Germans working and living in the area. This includes police officers and railroad officials, and the wife of a railway policemen (she points out Belzec to him). Cornides' description of a train going towards Belzec shows how obvious trains full vs trains empty would have been to anybody at the stations these trains passed through. (bold mine)

At 12:19  p.m.  I saw a freight train enter the station. On the roofs and steps sat armed guards. You could see from afar that the wagons were packed with human beings. I turned around and walked all the way to the train : it included 35 cattle wagons and a passenger car. In each of the wagons were at least 60 Jews (when transporting soldiers or prisoners, 40 people are put there, but here the benches had been removed and you could see that the prisoners were standing, huddled together others). The doors were ajar, the windows were screened with barbed wire. Of the few men who were there, most were old; the other people were women, young girls and children. Many children crowded around the windows and in the half-open door. The youngest were probably no more than two years old. As soon as the train stopped, the Jews tried to pass bottles outside for water. But SS guards stood on both sides of the train, so no one could approach it. At this moment, a train coming from Jaroslau entered the station, the passengers hurried towards the exit without paying attention to the convoy.

A more detailed description of trains going to Belzec can be found here https://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/pol ... edlung.php

The treatment of this report has illuminated for me the high level of biased thinking present on this forum. The simplest explanation from a revisionist perspective is that the report is a post war fabrication, likely by Cornides himself to get some money or fame. But people here tried to argue it supported the revisionist narrative or had zero evidentiary value on the basis of its content, and once they committed here, they were unwilling move off their position, despite all the absurdities I pointed out.

[borjastick]

How far? How does a train carriage behave differently when full or empty? I can see trains all day long full, half empty and empty and they don't look any different.

[curioussoul]

The Cornides report predates the widespread news of killing at the Reinhard camps which only began to widely circulate towards the end of 42.

Interesting. When was the "Cornides report" (I thought they were diary entries?) published and by who?