This is a peripheral issue, but it's something that's been bothering me for a while. The satirical Photoshop artwork of David Dees is tremendously popular on the websites of Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, and other conspiracy broadcasters, because he covers everything from the Federal Reserve to chemtrails. In fact, Rense hosts Dees' online image gallery.
Some of Dees' images are quite clever: firemen hose down a blazing bank with money instead of water, a drooling man is literally brainwashed by the major media outlets.
Others are ridiculous: vaccine injections are the fangs of a poisonous snake, Obama shreds the Constitution in front of a bust of Marx, the moon landing "hoax" is exposed in a single paragraph.
Some are stupid: Obama's African birth certificate, references to Larry Sinclair.
Some are bizarre: Obama prances past a zombified Queen Elizabeth, who clutches an iPhone with Dr. Manhattan on the screen; a mother and her children suffer some kind of necrotizing disease as they shop for GMO produce and processed foods containing MSG (Dees and Jones believe it causes obesity, diabetes, and organ failure).
And some of the images are so very wrong that I could cry.
- One points out that the number of murdered Jewish people on the Auschwitz memorial plaque was revised from 4 million to 1.5 million, and asks, "Was Israel created on a total lie?".
Even if the disparity between the original and final estimates was ten times greater than this, "total lie" would not be fair. Millions died. Period.
- Another declares there were no mass graves at Treblinka and Belzec.
- One gives a capsule of the Canadian genocide against First Nations schoolchildren. This was very real, but Dees mentions the "United Catholic Church" as the only perpetrator. There is no such church. In reality, every Protestant denomination in the country (excluding Mormonism) was involved. The Anglican and United churches actually played larger roles than the Catholic church.
- Another depicts starlets parading on the red carpet. In the distance, the Hollywood sign looms. The O's have been replaced by Stars of David. And the carpet, on closer inspection, is made up of dead bodies. The Star of David appears frequently in Dees' art, always in a deeply negative context.
- Another identifies the Holomodor as "the real Holocaust". Holomodor was an atrocity, a genocidal campaign launched by a tyrant. It is one of many that have occurred on nearly every continent during the past two centuries. They are all travesties. Yet Dees feels it necessary to turn crimes against humanity into some sort of competition.
- There is a Christmas card to Ernst Zundel, a "heroically brave man" who was "unjustly imprisoned by World Zionism". Others depict the "persecution" of famous Holocaust revisionists, and one shows a woman being tasered by helmeted police for reading Zundel's "Did Six Million Really Die?".
- A popular revisionists' mantra ("Zyklon-B was only a pesticide, used only for de-lousing camp inmates") is given its own *fact* sheet. Maybe U.S. death-row prisoners were only being de-loused by helpful prison guards, as well? And then they coincidentally died from unrelated conditions whilst sitting in the gas chamber?
Dees prefaces his archive by denying that he is anti-Semitic. He and Rense are only anti-Zionist, he writes, and "those who attempt to smear my art as 'anti-semitic' are fools and frauds."
Fair enough. But so are those who attempt to deny or minimize the Holocaust, blame a single Christian denomination for crimes simultaneously committed by over a dozen religious denominations (plus the federal government), and spread discredited and libelous rumours about political figures they don't like.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
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21 comments:
Opposition to a malignant system can produce distorted protests- Jones and Rense are such. But both recognize a creeping totalitarianism when they see it...(from the Patriot Act to 'universal default' clauses on credit cards, etc.)... Dees art should not always be taken literally. There are many pieces of art in museums that offer wild conjectures, reflecting the inner subjective truths of the artist. You may object to my analogy, but a dispute over a word or phrase should not cause one to want to curb a voice ("Israel created on a total lie.") The use of six million is meant to create a sense of entitlement? The number was changed on the plaque. "Total lie" does not necessarily refer to a group in one location, a certain death count, but it refers to an certain idea- at least in the artists mind (not mine). My Jewish friend told me about 2 of the six million really died from typhus and the general lack of food ,a lack regular German citizens experienced and died from too. Was my Jewish friend then a "holocaust denier?" I have another Jewish friend who once told me that the creation of the state of Israel was the "one of the worst foreign policy mistake of the 20th century-its caused nothing but trouble" I disagreed with him, of course. Does my Jewish friends statement make him anti-semitic?
"Total lie" ought not to be too closely linked with the art and the auschwitz plaque. Many did die in the War, and many jews perished also. I dont think anyone is claiming that many Jews didn't die in the war. There seems to be some sort of irrational connection between the six million figure and the creation of Israel...as if one necessarily had to follow after the other...a certain amount of pain and suffering equals the creation of your own state? Lets give the gypsies their own country too....Israel can exist legitimately whether or not one million died, or 5-6 million died in the holocaust...one misplaced word does not delegitimize a work....Dees objects to a certain concept of Zionism, the way my Jewish friends object to Zionism also, and what that involves.Let artists create new worlds.
Dees art should not always be taken literally
He wants it to be. His Holocaust "art", unlike his other art, is in the form of fact sheets like those you would see on postcards. Only instead of telling us how many gallons of water Old Faithful spews per day, he tells us the Nazi death camps were fairly comfy detention camps.
These particular works are not symbolic and open to interpretation, like Dees' other work. And they do not constitute anything resembling a personal vision or an artistic statement; they're just the same old crap that revisionists have been peddling for decades. The only Holocaust-related work with any subtlety is the "Christmas card" to Zundel, which seems to be Dees' way of pointing out "See, it's a Christmas card because Jews don't celebrate Christmas! Because they killed Jesus! And now they're incarcerating a fat, jolly man who likes children! Kind of like Santa! They didn't kill Santa, but they sure don't like him."
How droll.
I really don't care what percentages of the concentration camp inmates died from disease, starvation, or execution. They wouldn't have died from typhus and other diseases if they hadn't been crammed together and poorly nourished in the camps, so to my mind that's not really any better than gasing or shooting the inmates. Outside the camps, starvation and disease were not as common.
The First Nations children here in Canada were not gassed or shot. They were simply kept in close quarters with kids who were already sick with smallpox or TB, given substandard medical treatment, and fed the worst food available. This genocidal campaign succeeded - the death rate in the residential schools stayed at 50% for many years. So "the conditions in the camps were poor" doesn't let anyone off the hook. It doesn't make anyone a Holocaust denier; it's just a moot point.
The number doesn't matter to me, either. I think you're correct in saying that there isn't any "magic number" that would guarantee the Jewish people a homeland, so all this haggling over numbers by anti-Zionists strikes me as an absurd waste of time. If you're going to oppose Zionism or the actions of the Israeli government, stick to the facts about current policies and events, not things that were done to the Jewish people over 60 years ago.
There is genuine academic debate about the holocaust, including trying to obtain the most accurate figures of the dead. But there is no serious academic dispute about the nature or scale of the holocaust.
Artists usually want their work to provoke controversy. The problem for Dee's holocaust stuff is that it provokes ridicule and dismissal.
There is genuine academic debate about the holocaust... But there is no serious academic dispute about the nature or scale of the holocaust.
Exactly. No reputable academic subscribes to revistionism. Real historians know exactly how flawed it is. The people drawn to revisionism always have an ideological axe to grind; it's not about scholarship or "just asking questions". In order to become a revisionist, you have to ignore mountains of data and evidence that point directly to deliberate genocide on the part of the Nazis - that takes willful blindness.
I don't think Dees wants to provoke any controversy at all. His work is so perfectly tailor-made for his target audience that I think he's just meeting a need (providing graphic content for conspiranoia websites). It's really more propaganda than art.
There are many Jews opposed to Israel and Zionism...."Zionism" was once condemned by a U.N. resolution as being a racist ideology. You said anti-zionists haggling over the numbers was a waste of time, but pro-Zionists dont think so. They are fixated upon six million. You said the anti-zionists need not argue the point, yet the Zionists argue it endlessly. They would muzzle my Jewish friends- they dont accept the magic number, not even close.
There is no serious academic debate on scale or nature of the event, because serious academic debate is not allowed. If 'order of magnitude' is altered by your research, you can be arrested.
Yet my copy of H.G. Wells 'History of the World' says the number was closer to 4.5 million, and another encyclopedia I have, printed in 1992 from England, says it could be closer to 5.1...if its about 4.5m, and then you calculate that almost half were typhus victims, etc., then the holocaust becomes a (direct) murder of 2-3 million...all of this is an 'order of magnitude' argument that I don't care about, but zionists care deeply about it. The number 6 million cannot be discussed or analyzed without reprisals or other attacks.
Pro-zionists seem to "have an axe to grind" or have a dont ask questions attitude, and then they try to lock you up, etc., if you ask the wrong question.
"Real historians" can't ask certain questions or analyze this, for fear of losing their job or worse.
There is an over-arching issue here, and I will very briefly examine it from "both" sides :
The so-called revisionists want the number drastically reduced, in an attempt to legitimize Nazi, or crypto- Nazi ideology, to help make it more respectable, to help it appeal to the mainstream.
The Israelis, Zionists, etc., want the number fixed at 6m, to bolster their claim to the Palestine area, to strengthen international support for Israel and generate sympathy for Jewsish causes worlwide.
Now you know, when opponents in a debate are arrested just to shut them up, you know something is not right with that picture.
serious academic debate is not allowed
Not exactly. It isn't needed. There is no serious academic debate about the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Any "academic debate" is just anti-Zionist and/or anti-Semitic rhetoric. While I don't believe that the average revisionist needs to be prosecuted, I view revionism as a total sham driven primarily by bigotry, ignorance, and hatred.
The numbers are irrelevant. Israel is here to stay. Downplaying the Holocaust isn't going to change that. Legitimate critics of Israeli policies and actions already know this, and act accordingly. They don't waste their time with revistionist b.s.
BTW: H.G. Wells was not, in my opinion, an historian. There's debate as to whether he even wrote the book you reference.
My academic Jewish friends debate the numbers. This happens on occasion among Jews, its in- house criticism, not intended for outsider consumption. Also, the motive for the loss of life is sometimes regarded as being justified, because of a perceived turning away from God, it was a deserved punishment. This, too, is almost always in-house. Though rare, these debates occur among very highly educated Jews, engaged in with much seriousness. Does this turn them into revisionists driven by bigotry?
Postgate and Wells son edited my copy of 'Outline'...Wells wrote it... I think you meant to say that he might have stolen some of the material, an idea that remains unproven. Either way, I still enjoyed reading it.
I agree with you, Israel is here to stay, the numbers debate won't change that.
I hope to travle to Jerusalem one day, and I hope that great city is ruled by Israel , and not an Arab state, when I go there.
the motive for the loss of life is sometimes regarded as being justified, because of a perceived turning away from God, it was a deserved punishment
I really don't know what to say here. That's a creepy statement.
The supposed "downward revision" of the numbers on the plaque at Auschwitz is actually a common feature of holocaust denial - it's used to generate suspicion of the entire Holocaust, of course.
However, it does have a perfectly reasonable and well documented explanation: Auschwitz is in Poland, which was formerly in the Soviet bloc, at which time the plaque had the higher figure of 4 million - as dictated by Official Soviet History (Stalin's falsification of history etc). Western historians NEVER accepted the 4 million figure - but always asserted approx 1-1.6 million. After the fall of the Soviet Union, and Poland's "liberation", Poland undertook an independent re-investigation of the matter, and subsequently came to the same conclusions Western historians had always maintained - 1-1.6 million. The plaque was then changed.
This also explains why there has no need for a wider "revision" of the overall Holocaust numbers following the change by Polish authorities as the Western estimates were ALWAYS circa 1-1.6 million murdered at Auschwitz.
The discrepancy was a result of Stalinist falsification - not of Western historians' confusion.
The confusion is cynically or ignorantly exploited by holocaust deniers.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.py?camps/auschwitz/4-million-variant
Thanks, tlnl. This information is available for those who seek it, but some prefer not to even try.
Noam Chomsky once said that one could deny the holocaust and not be anti-semitic...he meant that if someone just simply cannot believe that someone could be so bad... that denial does not necessarily equal anti-semitism.
The forensic investigation of any crime scene... we ought to welcome...but seems to be prevented, here and there.
Jews helped finance Hitler, and about 150,000(?) Jews and half -Jews served as soldiers for the Reich, some as Generals and Admirals. As late as the end of 1942, some Jewish organizations tried to form military alliances with Germany- against England (England held Palestine, and seemed about the fall, so you can see the motive ). At one point, a group of Nazi leaders tried to save most of Europe's Jews (The Madagascar Plan). The Wannsee Conference, and the acceleration of the persecution (spring-summer of 1942) occured after Germany learned that the victorious allies would tear the defeated country into pieces and probably scatter the populace to the wind (precursors /variations of the post-war Morganthau plan... (...The US had just joined the fight...this helped motivate subsequent actions, as it was known that the USA would probably be the deciding factor). Also, some Jewish leaders rejected safe passage offered by German leaders- a desire for martyrdom may have been the motive, but this sounds odd to me. I think the deal offered wasn't good enough in some way....I'm not writing any of this to excuse any action.
Here, I never explicitly denied that six million died.
A few very religious Jews seem to be the only ones to conclude that the deaths were justified, a punishment for falling away from God and his law. I never felt this way or ever agreed with this idea.
If I see 'stop' sign, although the meaning is usually clear, and intended to be so, sometimes the imagination can interpret it another way.
The bit about the Auschwitz plaque is a false arguument, as it's true that no Western historian ever used the 4 million number as anything definitive. But the problems in all of the orthodox histories as they relate to cremation are quite real. The camp had at most 46 cremation muffles working at one time (some were in a state of repair) and such muffles can be expected to take an average of one hour per body. These were super-nuclear furnaces which could cause bodies to evaporate instantaneously. They were cremation muffles of a rather common type and the limits of performance of such machines are fairly well known. It would not have been realistically possible to keep such muffles in operation 24 hours per day non-stop, but even if we ignore that fact then the expected cremation time of one body per hour times 24 hours would indictate that at most 1104 cremations might be performed on a daily basis. But the orthodox historians claim that a minimum of 4000 or more bodies were incinerated daily at Auschwitz for long periods. This is no more valid than the 4 million number. But whereas the 4 million number was principally a byproduct of Soviet propaganda, the inflated claims about daily cremation capacity have been running through Western published academic works without being called into question.
The 4 million number - the Soviet one - was based on the following calculation:
The Soviet estimate, however, was made purely on the base of the following calculus involving the estimated daily incineration capacity and the number of days the Kremas were in operation (_Anatomy_, pp.61,
65):
Krema I ....... 300 bodies per day; 720 days.
Krema II .... 3,000 bodies per day; 570 days.
Krema III ... 3,000 bodies per day; 540 days.
Krema IV .... 1,500 bodies per day, 510 days.
Krema V ..... 1,500 bodies per day, 540 days.
By multiplying the number of the daily incineration capacity of bodies per
day by the number of days, for each Krema, a total of 5.121 million deaths
was obtained. Then assuming the Kremas were used at 4/5 their capacity the
death toll of 4.097 million was obtained.
Of course, one small point Moran forgot to mention is that the mainstream
of historians and Holocaust researchers have _never_ bought into the
Soviet estimate for the death toll at Auschwitz. Ever.
If we take 1/4 of the estimates (ie 1 million, not 4 million) - then we get figures for the Krema that are 1/4 of the Soviet figures. Much more plausible scale.
And anyway - nobody ever claimed every single victim was passed through the Krema.
the inflated claims about daily cremation capacity
What inflated claims?
Summary of cremation capacities for Kremas I-V
(March through December 1943):
Month End Days Muffles bod/24hr. bodies
March ........ 41 29 4,500 24,450
April ........ 60 23 3,750 103,500
May .......... 36 0 0 65,250
June ......... 9 23 4,500 16,050
July ......... 62 23 4,500 106,950
August ....... 62 23 4,160 106,950
September .... 93 38 5,700 176,700
October ...... 62 38 5,700 139,500
November ..... 62 38 5,700 139,500
December ..... 62 38 5,700 139,500
Total Days ... 549
Total Capacity (bodies) ................ 1,018,350
the daily estimated rates of the Kremas, based on the letter from
the Zentralbauleitung to group C of June 28, 1943, indicated capacities
based on 2 bodies per muffle every 30 min. [2]
However, according to SonderKommando Feinsilber, the camp authorities
reccomended that the incineration time be reduced to 20 minutes and the
number of bodies, depending on size, increased to three. [3] Tauber said
that the incineration time was 30 minutes and 3 bodies. Ho"ss contended
that the incineration time was 20 minutes with alternating loads of 3 then
2 bodies. This would give a total capacities of 6,624 (Tauber), 8,280
(Ho"ss), and 9,936 (Feinsilber) for Kremas II-V. Ho"ss, however, also
wrote that a total of 7,000 bodies were cremated every 24 hours.[4]
Using estimates for an incineration time of 20 minutes and alternating
loads of 3 then 2 bodies in the muffle (excepting Krema 1, which is
calculated at the Zentralbauleitung estimate, as it is unclear if the
loads for Krema I were increased or not), and allowing 4 hours downtime
per every 24 hours (though Topf's estimate was 3 for every 24 [5]), this
should give a capacity of 150 bodies per muffle per 24 hours for Kremas
II-V. (Krema I's capacity was left at the Zentralbauleitung's estimate of
340 bodies per 24 hours.)
Pressac states that Krema I was "neutralized at the request of the
Political Department" at the end of July, 1943, and that "Krema V would
not be used after September because crematorium II (repaired) and III
would thereafter suffice to 'treat' the daily flow of Jews." [6] That is,
until May of 1944, when the extermination of the Hungarian Jews began. [7]
According to Piper, however, "[w]ith the launching of large new crematoria
in Birkenau (March-June 1943), incineration of bodies in the old
crematorium was discontinued, and the bodies of the prisoners who died in
the main camp and satellite camps were shipped to Birkenau for cremation."
[8] Erring on the side of conservatism, then, I will assume cremations at
Krema I were discontinued when Krema II became operational on March 31,
1943, as it was the first of the largest capacity Kremas to become
operational.
Given all this, we can make an educated guess as to the monthly
incineration capacity of the Kremas. This by no means is a definitive
estimate, but simply an educated guess based on a middle-of-the-road
estimate of muffler load and "burn" time, with a generous downtime
factored in. What I have also tried to factor in is the actual up-time of
the Kremas, as they became operational and went down (or were retired or
damaged) at various times during the period in question.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.py?camps/auschwitz/crematoria/furnace-capacity-analysis
[link for previous post: http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.py?camps/auschwitz/4-million-variant-02 ]
There were five Kremas in Auschwitz. Number II, for instance, had 15 huge furnaces, especially designed to burn efficiently and quickly. Each could consume 3 to 4 bodies at once (remember that many children were present, and many of the people were emaciated), and do so in a maximum of 45 minutes. The SS experimented with different
combinations of corpse types and coke to determine which would
provide the most cost-efficient results! (Mu"ller, 60-61; Klarsfeld,
99-100; Get pub/camps/auschwitz/Krema-I.001)
The figure Leuchter gives as the maximum number of people that could be executed in a week - 1693 - is absurd, as is demonstrated by the
following calculation for a single Krema, number II:
One gas chamber, about 210 square meters (2220 square feet) in area,
easily accommodated a few hundred people, who were crammed into it.
(See Section 2.16)
Fifteen furnaces, each capable of incinerating at least 3 bodies in
45 minutes, could dispose of at least 720 bodies in a 12-hour day.
In a single year, Krema II could incinerate over a quarter-million
bodies. Add that to the capabilities of Kremas III, IV, and V, and
you begin to get the picture. In addition, bodies were also burned
in massive pits. Two gruesome photographs of these "burning pits",
taken in secrecy in Auschwitz-Birkenau, have survived. They are of
reasonable quality, and show men standing inside a pile of naked
bodies, with the smoking pit in front of them. Some bodies are being
dragged into the pit. The photographs are reproduced in Pressac,
(422) and are also available as GIF files. (Get ~/gifs/aupit001.gif)
As a reference, one can look at a letter dated June 20 1943, sent to
SS General Kammler in Berlin, citing the number of bodies that can be
disposed of in 24 working hours as 4,756. A photograph of the letter
and its serial number in German archives appears in Pressac (247).
(This is lower than 5 x 1440 = 7,200 because some of the Kremas had
fewer furnaces than II and III. The exact breakdown, specified in
the letter from Jahrling to Kammler, is 340 corpses for Krema I, 768
for IV and V, 1440 for II and III. This letter is available in GIF
format. (Get ~/gifs/au-doc.001)
It is naive at best, and contemptuously dishonest, to claim that such
a number of crematoriums were provided for anything other than the
disposal of bodies created by the mass murder of helpless victims.
Leuchter arrives at his figures assuming that the people could occupy
the gas chambers at a density of maximum 1 person per 9 square feet
(!!) and that it would take a week (!!) to ventilate the gas chambers
before they could be used for another mass execution. These
assumptions are absurd.
Lastly, two other gassing installation existed in Auschwitz - the
so-called "Bunker I" and "Bunker II". They were also demolished by
the fleeing SS.
ooops - link:
http://stason.org/TULARC/history/holocaust/52-It-Was-Impossible-to-Kill-6-Million-People-at-Auschwitz.html
Ive called in before. there was no call screening at all! I think you need to stop infighting with the movement. Alex Jones may be wrong about some things but everyone is entitled to there opinion and people make mistakes. Also at least he wakes people up to many important issues that need to be looked at. He also is for preserving the rights and freedoms of all people everywhere. Also he is one of the biggest supporters of 911 truth. He has made people realize that the WE have the power and WE can effect change in a positive peaceful manner, and violence is not the answer! You are completely wrong on about 99.9% of your info on this site. He also states over and over that he will not single out any group of people. Once again you are wrong. You need to open your eyes and ears and do some actual research before you start bashing someone that is just trying to make a difference. I am not a minion of Alex Jones...I am a person who has done the research and I agree with him on many of his opinions, and I want a free world without tyranny. I want the governments around the world to stop the bloodshed of innocent people. I want the attack on our god given rights and freedoms to end and be fully restored. I am for the people ... and I also think Alex Jones embodies these ideals. Even if what you are saying is true(and i am not saying it is)at least he has woken people up to the fact that everything is not what it seems, All humanity is beautiful, and he has ignited peoples souls again. At least now people question the actions of the government, instead of just going along with whatever they are told to believe and do in their everyday lives. We need to stop bashing each other and unify against the real threat. The treat of a criminal group trying to shape the world into a hellish police state.
To the blog owner, and any readers:
You might be interested in the comments on the following linked thread where David Dees shows up and exposes himself as a genuine holocaust denier and an obvious liar and purveyor of known untruths.
http://davefromqueens2.blogspot.com/2010/02/national-wingnut-appreciation-day.html
@anon: I think you're deluded.
So many North Americans try to talk about Israel/Palestine on the web, and almost none of them have ever been there. You can read and post all you want, but you don 't have even the least bit of understanding until you have been there.
As far as death camps and gas chambers, try looking in to scientific studies, medical reports, and census data for a more grounded view.
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