quote:

Given the dichotomy between the very complex nature and history of Auschwitz and the habit of many to consider the camp only as a "top-secret mass extermination center," many people, including bona-fide historians, survivors, and not so bona-fide holocaust deniers, often commit the fallacy of composition: they reason from the properties of the part of Auschwitz that was engaged with mass extermination to the properties of Auschwitz as a whole. A favourite example of the negationists is the so-called swimming pool in Auschwitz I. They argue that the presence of a swimming pool, with three diving boards, shows that the camp was really a rather benign place, and therefore could not have been a center of extermination. They ignore that the swimming pool was built as a water reservoir for the purpose of firefighting (there were no hydrants in the camp), that the diving boards were added later, and that the pool was only accessible to SS men and certain privileged Aryan prisoners employed as inmate-funcionaries in the camp. The presence of the swimming pool does not say anything about the conditions for Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, and does not challenge the existence of an extermination program with its proper facilities in Auschwitz II.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

quote:

Given the dichotomy between the very complex nature and history of Auschwitz and the habit of many to consider the camp only as a "top-secret mass extermination center," many people, including bona-fide historians, survivors, and not so bona-fide holocaust deniers, often commit the fallacy of composition: they reason from the properties of the part of Auschwitz that was engaged with mass extermination to the properties of Auschwitz as a whole. A favourite example of the negationists is the so-called swimming pool in Auschwitz I. They argue that the presence of a swimming pool, with three diving boards, shows that the camp was really a rather benign place, and therefore could not have been a center of extermination. They ignore that the swimming pool was built as a water reservoir for the purpose of firefighting (there were no hydrants in the camp), that the diving boards were added later, and that the pool was only accessible to SS men and certain privileged Aryan prisoners employed as inmate-funcionaries in the camp. The presence of the swimming pool does not say anything about the conditions for Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, and does not challenge the existence of an extermination program with its proper facilities in Auschwitz II.

source

Now for the deniers, where did the millions of bodies in all the mass graves at the concentration camp come from? Movie industry special effects?

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The German-Australian revisionist Frederick Toben has brought to our attention the fact that today, beside the swimming pool at Auschwitz I, there stands a signboard bearing, in Polish, English and Hebrew, a notice intended to have the visitor believe that the pool was in fact a simple reservoir for the fire brigade. It reads as follows:

"Fire brigade reservoir built in the form of a swimming pool, probably in early 1944."

He asks when exactly this signboard appeared. I myself have no idea but the inscription is just as fallacious as any number of the Auschwitz museum's other allegations or explanations. One fails to see why the Germans, rather than settling for an ordinary reservoir, would have made one in the fashion of a swimming pool... complete with diving board.

The pool was a pool. It was meant for the detainees.

Marc Klein mentions it at least twice in his 1947 recollections of the camp. In an article entitled 'Auschwitz I Stammlager' he wrote:

"The working hours were modified on Sundays and holidays, when most of the kommandos were at leisure. Roll call was at around noon; evenings were devoted to rest and to a choice of cultural and sporting activities. Football, basketball, and water-polo matches (in an open-air pool built within the perimeter by detainees) attracted crowds of onlookers. It should be noted that only the very fit and well-fed, exempt from the harsh jobs, could indulge in these games which drew the liveliest applause from the masses of other detainees." (De l'UniversitÈ aux camps de concentration: Telmorgnages strasbourgeois, Paris, les Belles-lettres, 1947, p. 453).

In his 1948 booklet 'Observations et reflexions sur les camps de concentration nazis' he further wrote:

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ORIGINAL: thezeppo

Oh go on then I will do one more.

50,000 testimonies, of which this video has identified six to back up its claims. There is no empirical link to Steven Spielberg in any way beyond the voice over saying his name and the Shoah foundation sign. Of those testimonies, all of them are edited and all of them involve the interviewee constantly looking at a point off camera as they tell their stories. Plus at the end the director walks on and hands everyone a big bag of money.

Show me even one of these testimonies reproduced at the actual Shoa foundation website, or some evidence that's where they come from, and I might watch it again.

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ORIGINAL: Real0ne



The way I see it we are in an internet information world and no amount of orwellian shuffle can hide the facts.

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ORIGINAL: Real0ne
Like I said there are tonz of vids out there, I have them, and I know there are plenty of bw vids showing all the recreational activities and the participants wearing the star of david and so forth enjoying those recreational activities.

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

No, they were filmed elsewhere, but claimed to be from the camps in an attempt to deny that mass murder was going on for propaganda purposes.

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ORIGINAL: thezeppo

You never did answer my first question, which is what they were doing in the concentration camps in the first place? You are arguing your position by trying to pick apart relatively inconsequential facts just doesn't help your case at all. Assuming that those respondents in the video are genuine, there are 50,000 testimonies in that archive and that video shows 6. If 49,994 people said I had stolen your sandwich, and 6 said I hadn't, who would you believe?

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"Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of 'national security' were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age."
- "Years of Infamy", Michi Weglyn

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which permitted the military to circumvent the constitutional safeguards of American citizens in the name of national defense.

The order set into motion the exclusion from certain areas, and the evacuation and mass incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, most of whom were U.S. citizens or legal permanent resident aliens.

These Japanese Americans, half of whom were children, were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

No, it's propaganda.
You used to get that a lot during wars. Of course we're smarter now so there's been no sign of anything of the sort since a couple of ugly buildings got knocked over in New York and war was declared on the evil terrorist and all of his kids, has there?