From: John.Morris@UAlberta.CA (John Morris)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,alt.fan.ernst-zundel
Subject: Re: 970408: Partisans
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 1997 00:43:24 GMT
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
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In ,
zundel-repost@alpha.c2.org (E. Zundel Repost) wrote:

[snip]

>------------ BEGIN ZUNDELGRAM MESSAGE ------------
>
>April 8, 1997
>
>Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
>
>These days, you don't read "gassing" stories in the papers readily - what
>you see, more and more, are stories about executions by bullet of some Jews
>in Eastern Europe, mainly by the "Einsatztruppen".
>
>This is a highly significant development, for two reasons:
>
>1)  Unlike the so-called "executions by gassing" - largely figments of sick
>imaginations in psychological warfare departments of Allied nations and
>representations of Jewish Lobby groups - some of these shootings happened,
>particularly on the Eastern Front.  They happened for just cause and good
>reason.  They were REPRISAL shootings against armed and dangerous
>guerrillas endangering soldiers and civilians alike.

Perhaps Ingrid could explain the "just cause" which brought Jaeger to
report the following item:

28.8.41   Kedainiai 710 Jews, 767 Jewesses, 599
                    Jewish children                            2,076

or these items:

29.8.41  Rumsiskis and     20 Jews, 567 Jewesses, 197
         Ziezmariai        Jewish children                       784
29.8.41  Utena and         582 Jews, 1,731 Jewesses, 1,469
         Moletai           Jewish children                     3,782
[...]
1.9.41   Mariampole        1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 1,404
                           Jewish children, 109 mentally sick,
                           1 German subject (f.), married to a
                            Jew, 1 Russian (f.)                 5090

   --from the detailed report by SS-Standartenfuehrer Jager about mass
     killings in Nazi occupied USSR, July-November 1941

In four short days, in six towns in the Ukraine, the Nazis killed 3070
children.

>In the East, they happened largely to an armed gang of underground thugs
>called "Partisans" who didn't bother wearing uniforms as was prescribed by
>the "Rules of Land Warfare" and the Hague and Geneva Conventions agreed to
>by civilized nations.

And according to Ingrid Rimland, all 3070 children were "armed and
dangerous guerrillas" and part of "an armed gang of underground
thugs."

--
 John Morris                                
 at University of Alberta  
-- 
The Nizkor Project     | http://www.nizkor.org/







From: John.Morris@UAlberta.CA (John Morris)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: 970408: Partisans
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 19:56:16 GMT
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
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In <5ip93e$is8$7@juliana.sprynet.com>, jbellinger@sprynet.com wrote:

>>   John.Morris@UAlberta.CA (John Morris) writes:
>>  In <19970412072900.DAA01442@ladder01.news.aol.com>, fafner13@aol.com
>>  (Fafner13) wrote:
 
>>  >In view of the fact that you seem fond of quoting from this so-called
>>  >Jaeger report would you mind answering the following:
  
>>  >1. How may we be sure the information in this document is correct?
  
>>  >2.  How may we be certain that the document itself is authentic?]
  
>>  >3.  What happened to the alleged author of the report?
  
>>  >4.  Who found this document, when, and where?
  
>>  There is an account of the discovery and chain of custody for the
>>  Einsatzgruppen reports in the Introduction to Yitzhak Arad, et al.,
>>  eds., _The Einsatzgruppen Reports_ (New York: Holocaust Library,
>>  1989).
  
>>  By way of a general answer to your questions, *you* cannot ever know
>>  whether any document is authentic, because you have no standards by
>>  which authenticity can be tested.
  
>>  You have an epistemological nightmare on your hands. There are only
>>  two escapes for you: develop a means for testing authenticity, or
>>  believe in conspiracies.

>Well, you only partially answered my questions.  What of Jaeger himself?
>Was he captured?  If so, by whom?  Did he ever testify as to these documents?
>If so, please. where?

Good. Now let's apply the problematic outlined above.

From your point of view, the fate of Jaeger does not matter in the
least. If he died during the war, your response will be that the
Allies pinned the blame on a man who could not gainsay the report
issued in his name. If he was captured, and he testified, your
response will be that he was tortured or denied counsel. If, as Gord
McFee suggests, he committed suicide after hiding for more than a
decade, your response will be that he wrote the report to stave off
Allied persecution, or that the Allies had him killed when he was
about to come out of hiding to gainsay the report.

The only reason you need to know the fate of Jaeger is so that you can
know which slot to put him in. Because you have no means by which to
assess the validity of evidence, you cannot interpret the evidence in
any reliable way: you cannot reliably know anything, hence, the
epistemological crisis. Your sole recourse is to force the facts to
fit your conspiracy theory, because you believe it to be true _a
priori_.

Unfortunately, your theory is a soporific which only masks your deeper
crisis. It is a powerful drug, because it gives you the illusion of
having not only a grasp of the facts, but also of an overarching
truth.

The difference between us, you and me, is that I am acutely aware of
the gaps in our knowledge, the confusions, the contradictions, the
need for contingent explanations, the difficulties of testing
hypotheses. You have no such doubts: you have a conspiracy theory that
will explain everything as each new fact comes to light. I have to
stop and think about every question that comes up; you don't.

Now, I could be wrong, and you could prove me wrong by attempting to
answer your own questions in terms of the general principles you would
apply:

  1. How may we be sure the information in this document is correct?
  2. How may we be certain that the document itself is authentic?

These questions are fundamental to the practise of history. Even
historians do not ask them often enough.

Or will my response simply get me a smart ass one-liner?

--
 John Morris                                
 at University of Alberta  
-- 
The Nizkor Project     | http://www.nizkor.org/








From: John.Morris@UAlberta.CA (John Morris)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: 970408: Partisans
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 02:09:09 GMT
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
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In <5ik0a8$nq0$5@juliana.sprynet.com>, jbellinger@sprynet.com wrote:

>>   John.Morris@UAlberta.CA (John Morris) writes:
>>  In ,
>>  zundel-repost@alpha.c2.org (E. Zundel Repost) wrote:

[snip]
  
>>  In four short days, in six towns in the Ukraine, the Nazis killed 3070
>>  children.

[Ingrid Rimland wrote:]  
>>  >In the East, they happened largely to an armed gang of underground thugs
>>  >called "Partisans" who didn't bother wearing uniforms as was prescribed by
>>  >the "Rules of Land Warfare" and the Hague and Geneva Conventions agreed to
>>  >by civilized nations.
  
>>  And according to Ingrid Rimland, all 3070 children were "armed and
>>  dangerous guerrillas" and part of "an armed gang of underground
>>  thugs."

>REPLY:  Of course you can demonstrate beyonf a reasonable doubt
>that this report which you claim was made by Jaeger is authentic?
>And who authenticated it?

Beyond a reasonable doubt? Yes. To a standard which you would accept?
No. Because your standard of proof is quite simply that if it tells
against the Nazis, it is a forgery. That is a not a valid standard in
historical inquiry much less a standard which could ever be met for
any document.

As Gord McFee has already pointed out, the Einsatzgruppen reports were
accepted into evidence by a variety of courts. The strongest evidence
that you yourself have been able to marshall against them is the
testimony of one perpetrator who said that the reports were
exaggerated.

Other than that, I will offer you the same words as I did in an
earlier response:

There is an account of the discovery and chain of custody for the
Einsatzgruppen reports in the Introduction to Yitzhak Arad, et al.,
eds., _The Einsatzgruppen Reports_ (New York: Holocaust Library,
1989).

By way of a general answer to your questions, *you* cannot ever know
whether any document is authentic, because you have no standards by
which authenticity can be tested.

You have an epistemological nightmare on your hands. There are only
two escapes for you: develop a means for testing authenticity, or
believe in conspiracies.

I should have added, by the way, that a belief in conspiracies is a
soporific. It will only mask the epistemological problem; it will not
resolve it.

--
 John Morris                                
 at University of Alberta  
-- 
The Nizkor Project     | http://www.nizkor.org/

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