Persecution for belief?

[BBA]

I just saw a TV bio about a guy who was an engineer for capital punishment equipment.

He was called into Canada to testify on a Nazi concentration camp case. In the case, he proved that the showers he investigated in Germany were not possible to be modified for use for gas execution...which was the claim for which he was to testify.

He began to suspect a conspiracy theory was at hand exxagerating the horror stories of NAZI camps. He showed only 500,000 deaths total from the camps, not the 6 million touted.

Aparantly, after he came back to the states, he was blackballed from work in his state, forced to leave his family, his wife divorced hime from stress and despair. He moved to California, and was basically treated as non-human, had rental cars repossesed as he was driving them...on the highway and in garages... Had his apartment locked from him, and was banned from working.

OK, the way it was presented, he did not the first thing criminal...but was treated worse than one!

Never mind the part about the historic account revision that he believed was necessary...but, is that the right way to treat any person for their beliefs?

Is this America we are brainwashed in?

[Richard_Cranium72]

As long as we've had history we have had people called Heretics. Remember the ones who talked about "gravity" or "the earth is NOT flat" or "There are other planets and Suns" or "There is only ONE GOD" ?? We don't want anyone to rock the boat, we love ignorant bliss, don't stir the pot etc.. poor guy, I've heard numbers like you've quoted and if it was 500k or 5mil it don't matter, people were killed for the ethnic descent, nothing else. Rumor and falsehoods have put an end to many innocents.. DrVette

[This message has been edited by Richard_Cranium72 (edited 07-27-2000).]

[ram]

It's a proven fact the Nazi's killed,murdered,raped,tortured, women, children and men!!!! Nuff said???? Evil is evil under any guise.... Shall we do a background check into this guys personel bieliefs? Is he antisimatic? Dont like blacks
ect ect ect?? Really burns my **** when some idiot trys to say it really wasnt all that bad!!!

[This message has been edited by ram (edited 07-27-2000).]

[jad1097]

It's also been proven that in this country people have been killed for not being "god fearing Christians" and because of their race! Kind of ironic isn't it?


Oh BBA yes most of America is brainwashed.

[This message has been edited by jad1097 (edited 07-27-2000).]

[Ygor]

The key here may be "as presented".

I'm no fan of revisionist history, which is what this person apparently stumbled into.

I believe this kind of info has come up in the courts before and was soundly discredited by independent historians and historical records this person may never have seen. It's also an idea advanced by the american nazi party. I've never heard of anyone else supporting it before.

It's kind of a shame that such documents must be locked away for preservation purposes, but they are.

It does remind me of something an acquaintance ran into once. Someone she met (also an engineer I think) and became somewhat involved with had become convinced that a major airline was really unfit to fly. He lost it all too because he was obsessed with proving this point. The airline is still in business and doing well. It's safety record (last time I looked) was above average.

So, it was his credibility that he lost. It's a short hop from there to crazy in some people's minds.

[narayan]

Look at how some of us are treated by others with different views on this BBS. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/frown.gif

[U-96]

The guy conducted a chemical analysis of the brickwork of the gas chambers AFAIK.
Gas was never pumped through the plumbing. The "shower" was simply a deception to get people into a confined space.
Tins of Zyklon B were simply dropped through vents in the ceiling, and the gas evaporated from the granules.

Personally I think he was out of his depth and manipulated by revisionists and Holocaust-deniers. Remember that this is a crime in several European countries.
I doubt that was his own intention. Also unless he is a Death Row mechanic with a qualification in forensic chemistry, I would question his findings anyway. Just because a guy builds a plane, doesn't mean he can investigate a crash.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/techniques-of-denial/forensic.html
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-06.html

[bomac58]

BBA where did you see this and who persecuted him?

[tonym]

You know, I don't feel a **** bit sorry for him! He certainly wasn't standing in those "showers" when the Nazis unleashed the indescribeable horror on the people in the concentration camps. U-96 is absolutely right-on, this fellow was out of his depth and 50+ years too late in time (unless he was an eyewitness) to give a cogent opinion on this matter.

Even if I could ignore all other accounts, I was very personally touched by a recollection from my best friend's dad. He was a "liberator" of a camp during WWII. A small camp in Czecholovakia or Hungary. There were human skeletons, both living and dead, strewn about the camp. There were immense open graves. Slaves were burying the dead and near-dead, and the one thing that he could vividly remember to the day he told us was the stentch of death. He and the other GIs couldn't eat or sleep very well for weeks after this experience.
And the people that were alive were so far gone that most died from malnutrition or disease, only a very few survivied.
And the Allied troops that did liberate these camps didn't look kindly on the Nazis that were present. They killed and tortured the b-*deleted**...a fate they most heartily deserved.
I can tell you that he saw the gas canisters, the lye mounds, the skulls, the corpses, the plundered personal effects, the HORROR! He was a tough man, but he cried and had to pause many times as he recounted this experience to us.

So, whether the gas came from the showers or seeped from the floor or came from where ever, it did happen. And questioning whether 500,000 or 5 million souls lost their lives is an exercise in futility and denial. Why are we shocked when an airliner crashes and 110 people lose their lives and then when we have accounts of hundreds of thousands or millions having benn persecuted and murdered, we do not mourn, but challenge the fact?

Human nature is one thing that I will never understand...


Tony

[This message has been edited by tonym
(edited 07-28-2000).]

*edited for language*-Mntsnow

[This message has been edited by Mntsnow (edited 07-28-2000).]

[BFlurie]

I think some are missing the point here (no pun, MTP). The point isn't a question of what the Nazis did -- that's already well documented. It's whether someone who disagrees, even if obviously wrong, should be treated in such an extreme way. The person should simply be ignored -- not persecuted. The persecution is based on others' own fears & insecurities instead of what the person "said", which can't really hurt anyone -- just don't listen.

[This message has been edited by BFlurie (edited 07-28-2000).]

[U-96]

"He Who Controls the Past, Controls the Future"

It is a double-edged sword, I agree. As a student of history, under such circumstances it is impossible for me to condone such censorship, even though some of my own family were victims.
That is why I disapprove of the crime of "Holocaust-denial". Not because I believe that such events did not happen, but because somewhere, at some time, a person may find evidence to the contrary of the accepted truth but will be arrested and imprisoned for supporting it. People imprisoned for ideas are normally termed political prisoners, and it contravenes the UN Charter on Human Rights.

It is a matter of principle that such things should be pursued and studied, if only so they can disproved. Any topic studied from only one point of view cannot be considered complete.
It is unfortunate that in this case, any attempt, serious or otherwise, to question the accepted history of the Holocaust, as correct as it is IMO, is also jumped on by neo-Nazis white supremacists etc, as proof of its non-existence, instantly devaluing any academic credibility it may have possessed.

[BBA]

I think it was the leuchter guy, I don't know the channel, it was on sattellite ( pick a channel )

I think that even if the guy is wrong, so be it, but why persecute him? He did what he believed was right, and that should be the end of it.

I think a lot of people will get irrate at just about anyone for simple stupid reasons they think they can point out, but the truth is most people who fall into that are only letting out repressed anger at something else in their lives get the best of them.

I feel sorry for that guy, he did no crime. Doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for the Jews though.

[Ygor]

I agree, BBA. I've also noticed that some things just "strike a nerve" in many people, and they just react.
When child or spousal abuse is alleged in the news or conversation, is our first thought "Did it really happen?" or is it "That rotten *%^$# that hurt <whomever>!"
Your triggers may be something else altogether but we all have some triggers like this, like it or not. Even when we realize this, it's usually not till after the fact, because we've already reacted.

[akaBruno]

Personally, I think that we should kill all Nazi's, when their heads pop up.

FTS,

Bruno

[BBA]

Thats so unlike a liberal!

What happened to holding hands? Man...you confuse me...err...no...you confuse yourself!

[falcompsx]

liberals are SO STUPID, one month they have one belief, next month, it's the next one, they just apeal to the people so they ca get elected they have no real foundings. Not all democrats are bad, just the really liberal ones. too much of anything is bad, too liberal or conservative, you need to find a good balance, and deal with reality.

[jeana]

I am breaking my self-imposed ban on political postings here...however, I am posting only information, not an opinion. I just spent two hours watching perhaps the same documentary that BBA may have seen, "Mr. Death: the Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.", an Errol Morris and Universal Studios film. Extremely interesting. Watching this film, and checking out U-96's links, will give you a sense of who this man was, the basis on which he made his claims, and how he was treated. Form your opinions then.

--Jeana