The Holocaust happened

I want to begin by stating that I really did try to prevent this type of response from TheTroof. I was clear about how an historical case is generally constructed. Apparently, rather than be mindful of this information, TheTroof just plowed right through it and addressed two of the pieces of evidence. Let's discuss. Regarding Henryk Tauber's testimony concerning his experience as a Sonderkommando, TheTroof chooses to address only Tauber's allegations about cremation rates, which the cited source, he notes, concedes are unrealistic. This requires some unpacking. First, to address TheTroof's counterargument, what today's commercial crematoria can or cannot do is wholly irrelevant. These crematoria do not have multiple muffles, and they are operated with care taken to recover cremains of a single decedent at a time. The crematoria at Birkenau had multiple muffles, and no one cared to separate the ashes of one corpse from the rest. The editorial note that TheTroof cites on the unreliability of Tauber's numbers is that of Jean-Claude Pressac (whose book TheTroof would do well to read -- http://www.holocaust-history.org...). Notably, while Pressac clearly believed that Tauber's numbers were inflated, he nevertheless believed the key details of Tauber's testimony, i.e., that Tauber saw Jews gassed in Krema II. Here, TheTroof should refer to my original post: we don't throw out whole testimonies based on wrong details, particularly when that testimony is corroborated by other testimonies and other evidence. Sorry. But this does allow us to bring in another important point. Tauber was not likely keeping tally of bodies or timing cremations with a stopwatch. Luckily, we have some idea of the cremation power at Birkenau. Among the pieces of evidence we have on this point is this document: http://www.holocaust-history.org... Translation here: http://www.holocaust-history.org... In short, in late 1942, the estimated capacity for all ovens combined in four crematorium buildings was more than 2,500 per day. This was sufficient cremation capacity to cremate the entire population of the camp in about six weeks. While this point doesn't prove gas chambers, it does raise the question of why so much cremation capacity was deemed necessary, doesn't it? Regarding the Vergasungskeller, TheTroof maintains that this was in fact a delousing chamber. On this point, his source is apparently this: Archiwum Państwowego Muzeum w Oswiecimiu, nr. neg. 1034/7 I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that I don't think that TheTroof has actually seen this document. I gather, instead, that he is relying on Carlo Mattogno for this point. Specifically, Mattogno makes precisely this argument in his book on Auschwitz, page 64, with note 77 on page 99 here: http://www.pdfarchive.info... Rather than getting into a lengthy and largely off-topic discussion of Mattogno's abuse of source material, the allegation itself is worth examining in some detail. Here are the problems with Mattogno's allegation that the Vergasungskeller was a delousing chamber. First, Mattogno concedes that he is talking about a different location in the camp, which is precisely the point. There were actual delousing chambers at Birkenau, except not in Krema II. Rather, he locates these at another location in the camp: http://www.remember.org... Krema II is at the upper left; the delousing chambers are in the building labeled "Sauna," over to the right. Second, Mattogno is clearly hoping that, since "Vergasungsraum" is used to refer to delousing chambers at the Sauna, we will dismiss the Vergasungskeller as being the same sort of facility. Here, the problems multiply: * The room is labeled on the blueprint as a morgue. * There is zero evidence of the room ever being used as either a delousing chamber or a morgue; there is, however, evidence of it being a gas chamber. * The levels of cyanide on the walls of Krema II are inconsistent with it being used as a delousing chamber; the levels would be much higher if it were, since delousing requires 24 hours of exposure (in a room, by the way, much smaller than the room in Krema II). On this point, Rudolf agrees -- the levels would be much higher if the room were a delousing chamber. * There are other instances of the verb "Vergasen" being used to refer to killing with gas, specifically this: http://www.holocaust-history.org... * The rooms Mattogno refers to here as Vergasungsraum are far more often referred to as Entlausungskammer. So where do we stand? TheTroof has attempted to disprove Tauber but forgets the basic rules of treating testimony, heading full steam ahead instead into now having to explain the massive crematory capacity at Birkenau. TheTroof similarly attempts to explain that the Vergasungskeller was a delousing chamber, but this conclusion is clearly at odds with the cyanide levels, several documents, and all of the testimony -- all of it. TheTroof can concede it was a gas chamber or I'll continue to supply evidence. I do expect him, if he insists that this room in Krema II was not a gas chamber, to provide a plausible explanation for what it was. I'll help: * An air-raid shelter? No documents and no testimony to that effect. * A gas-production room? Ditto, not to mention the inherent danger of generating gas in a building with operating cremation ovens. So what will it be?