Post: #1

The following is in response to the following thread:

/thread-26495.html The 2Wycked Guide To Horror Flicks

I started to write a response but it kept growing and growing. My post is too long for that thread - so I thought I would create a separate thread to dump it in.

I studied the holocaust a few years ago since I kept uncovering lots of stories which were largely unknown and interesting. Anyway - alot of this information came flooding back to me as I tried to write a post for the above thread.

So for those who want to hear me ramble on about the holocaust. Here we go...

I will split my original post into four parts below:

Post: #2

PART ONE

'The Human Centipede' is an interesting concept for a film.

The evil German scientist who stars in the film, Dr Josef Heiter, is based on Dr Josef Mengele. And the idea behind the film (stitching people together) is based on an experiment he is alleged to have performed at Auschwitz where he stitched a pair of twins (children called Tito and Nino) together.

They died soon afterwards.

What does this film tell use about people today? Well - what truly scares people today?

Is it the Devil? Nope.

Is it ghosts? Nope.

Is it aliens? Nope.

It is some random stranger kidnapping you and fucking you up.

In the 70's and 80's - horror films were based around the supernatural. Whilst in the 90's - horror films tended to disappear from the cultural landscape (in the west) to be replaced by campy/funny ones which parodied the horror genre.

Being kidnapped and tortured is what horror means today - and it is interesting that 'The Human Centipede' (the most famous horror film of recent times) is based around this fear (as were the 'Saw' films).

You can see what I mean from the trailer:





Now where do the Nazis fit into this? Well - the horrors of the Nazis are dealt with in two ways. One - as an abject reminder of the evil that man is capable of.

And - secondly - as a notion so frightening that the only way we can deal with it is by making fun of it. Which is easy with the Nazis - since in the postmodern world - the only thing more horrifying than killing millions of people. Is taking yourself too seriously.

And Hitler was guilty of both.





Now - if we look at a figure like Dr Josef Mengele. Some interesting things arise. What evidence do we have that he stitched two twins together?

It is from the testimony of a nurse who worked with Dr Josef Mengele which was given at the Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961.

Post: #3

Here we go..

Post: #4

PART TWO

Eichmann was living in Argentina at the time - but Israel didn't have an extradition treaty with Argentina. So - The Mossad were sent over to secretly kidnap Eichmann before taking him back to Israel to be put on trial.

A similar thing happened with Mordechai Vanunu. He was an Israeli nuclear scientist - who, back in the 1980's, went to the press with his account of Israel's secret nuclear program.

He was living in London at the time - and Israel didn't want to directly violate British sovereignty by kidnapping him on British soil.

So - instead a classic honey trap was set up/ A woman (of the type that Vanunu was said to find most appealing) was sent over to seduce Vanunu. He fell for her - and she promised him sex. But only if he would accompany her on a holiday to Rome.

Within hours of arriving in Rome - Vanunu was paralysed with drugs and on a ship heading for Israel.

At a secret trial he was sentenced to 18 years in prison (which he spent mostly in solitary confinement) for treason. As he was driven away from the court room - he wrote down the details of his flight to Rome on the palm of his hand and held it to the window of his prison van so that waiting journalists could be told information about the honey trap operation to kidnap him.



Before moving on I will add that Vanunu also believes The Mossad were behind 9/11. Make of that what you will.

The Sunday Times were wary of publishing Vanunu's claims as first. Since they had recently being duped into publishing the fake Hitler Diaries. The historian Hugh Trevor Roper was approached by The Sunday Times and said the diaries were genuine.

Hugh Trevor Roper is an interesting chap since he was sent to Berlin by British Secret Intelligence after WWII to confirm that Hitler really was dead - and hadn't faked his own death and escaped to Argentina (via the Ratlines that leading Nazis used to flee from justice).

Controversial historian - David Irving - actually gatecrashed the press conference, where Hugh Trevor Roper and The Sunday Times newspaper, were announcing to the world the exclusive serialisation of Hitler's diaries. In fornt of the worlds press he denounced the diaries as forgeries.

How did David Irving know this? Because the entry for the day that Hitler was badly burned and nearly killed in an attempt on his life was entered in the diary as just another day at work.

Here is a picture of the German soldier who tried to kill Hitler on that day (July 20, 1944). It is remarkable how similar he looks to Tom Cruise (who would portrayed him in a film).



For this reason - Irving claimed the diaries were fake. Later - he changed his mind and said they were real. And later still - he went back to saying they were fake. He now takes credit for being the first to identify them as fake. But leaves out the strange period in time when he went back and decided they were real.

Post: #5

PART THREE

David Irving was sued for being a holocaust denier about 14 years ago. In order to convict him - those suing him had to essentially prove, in a court of law, that the holocaust actually took place. There are some fascinating books covering this remarkable trial. But the following TV film does a good job of covering alot of the ground in the trial. It is a TV re-enactment of the trial itself:





Rudolf Hoess was the commandent at Auschwitz and was hanged on the grounds of Auschwitz at the same site where many prisoners had been hanged before him.

Whilst in Polish custody and awaitng execution he wrote a manuscript confessing to his running of Auschwitz and the number of people he killed.

Many holocaust deniars claimed he was tortured and as such the memoir he wrote can not be trusted as a faithful document.

This is where The Criterion of Embarassment steps in. To quote wikipedia -

Quote:The criterion of embarrassment is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about himself.

Some Biblical scholars have used this criterion in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.

It is quite an ingenious tool. And we can use it to analyse the claims made in his memoirs and whether or not it is likely that he was tortured into writing his account. The following is taken from a site which debunks the claims of holocaust deniars.

Quote:For obvious reasons, Holocaust deniers have been excoriating these memoirs for years, arguing that they are not worth the paper they are written on.

The typical argument is that Höss was tortured into falsely confessing to crimes he did not commit. Höss wrote these memoirs while in Polish captivity. However, we know that he was tortured by his British captors before being turned over to the Poles.

What deniers never reveal is that we know this because Höss stated this in his memoirs. If there was an attempt by his Polish captors to falsify these memoirs or to have Höss lie, this information would have never appeared. Höss explains:

"During the first interrogation they beat me to obtain evidence. I do not know what was in the transcript, or what I said, even though I signed it, because they gave me liquor and beat me with a whip. It was too much even for me to bear."

So - back to Dr Josef Mengele and the Siamese twins (Tito and Nino) he tried to create. Did it really happen? I don't know.

You see - Dr Josef Mengele wasn't a famous figure until the mid 80's when overnight he became The Most Evil Man In The World.

Why?

Simon Wiesenthal (the famous Nazi hunter and controversial figure in his own right as regards some of the claims he made about his own war record) wanted to drum up interest in his ongoing campaign. And started to promote the story of Dr Josef Mengele.

Thanks to Wiesenthal's efforts - Mengele's face became the face of evil.

Post: #6

PART FOUR

In 1979 - a TV show hosted by Leonard Nimroy called 'In Search Of...' (a weekly documentary series which investigated mysterious phenomena) devoted an episode to trying to track down Dr Josef Mengele who at the time was living in Paraguay.

You can see the end of the episode here where they finally track down his home. But since they do not have permission to enter the property - they have to film Mengele's house from about half a mile away.





The episode was filmed in 1979 and no mention is made of Mengele's experiments on twins. He didn't become famous for that until the mid-eigthies when Simon Wiesenthal wanted to gather more support for his charity campaign to help capture Nazis and bring them to justice.

Now - Dr Josef Mengele died six days after the episode above was broadcast. He mysteriously drowned whilst swimming off the coast of Brazil.

I can't help but wonder. Did The Mossad sidestep the usual diplomatic routes in order to deliver justice to Mengele? We will never know.

I once emailed David Irving (a fascinating speaker although deeply flawed in alot of his claims) to see what his opinions on Dr Josef Mengele were in terms of what he did, and the way he is portrayed as a sick monster today.

Two minutes later I got the following reply.

"it boils done to the old English aphorism: Give a dog a bad name, and hang him"

As for medical experiments on humans.

A few points.

Many German doctors did this - yet only Dr Josef Mengele became famous for it. Thanks to Simon Wiesenthal's publicity efforts of the mid 80's.

Secondly - the war experiments done by Japanese doctors in WWII were actually worse than what the Germans did in WWII.

Thirdly - The US did medical experiments on black prisoners, mentally disabled children and random members of the public until the early 1970's. This included injecting black prisoners with syphilis in the 1950's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_h...ted_States

None of this is a defense of Dr Josef Mengele. From the evidence available he is clearly an incredibly evil person.

But there were alot of people who were evil at Auschwitz. As such it is interesting to examine how one person gets plucked out from relative obscurity and portrayed as being much more evil than the rest.

And it is that infamy which leads to today and a film like 'The Human Centipede'.

Post: #7

It's easier for people to digest if they can blame one person instead of looking at all the causes. There could have been 100 guys like that, all equally evil, but maybe there needed to be one that was used as an example to represent the rest.

Post: #8

Yeah - I agree. And Josef Mengele fits that criteria in more ways than one. Terrible person.

I actually was going to do a lecture on the holocaust at work since I was uncovering alot of interesting stuff (the above is just a selection). And I always think it is interesting to look at old subjects from an angle that makes them seem fresh and novel.

But I uncovered so much information and stories that I reaslised I wouldn't be able to cover it all in 20 hours nevermind the one hour I would be given.

So - I hope the above is of some interest to others.

I had a really interesting way to start the lecture. I was going to hand out 8 books which seemingly had no relation to each other.

I was going to ask the audience to look at the books, weigh the books, read a few words, and pass them on for others to do the same.

I was then going to get the 8 books and stack them together and drop them on the table with a loud bang.

In each of those books there is an average of 300 pages.

On each of those pages there is 45 lines.

And on average each of those lines is made up of 12 words.

The number of words in those 8 books is roughly 6 million words.

And that is the same total as the number of people estimated as being killed in the holocaust.

Post: #9

NOTE: I can't remember my exact calculations - but the above gives you a flavour of what they would have been. It was a few years ago now.

Also - the idea above is not mine. Martin Amis referenced it from a book he read. The reference he gave had a similar calculation for the number of people killed by Stalin. It was something like every letter in the book represented four people.

Chilling.

Post: #10

My thoughts: I don't deny the Holocaust happened. There's overwhelming evidence that the Holocaust happened and any person who denies that the Holocaust happened is either:

A. A moron.
B. Someone who denies it just to look cool and make himself look like a badass rebel (example: Winston Wu from Happier Abroad and many others)
C. An extremist asshole who has something against Jews for whatever reasons they have (I.e Neo-Nazis, Islamic fundamentalists, some of the more fringe elements of the Pro-Arab/Pro-Palestine crowd, etc.).

Now, when it comes to my problems of the Holocaust. I don't like the fact that some people use it to justify committing sins in the present (people justifying some of the more extreme actions Israel does against the Arabs/Palis and similar things of nature). And don't get me wrong. I believe Israel has every right to exist and I am quite fond of Israelis (<3 Israeli women). It's just I don't like seeing stupid shit being justified by some shitty and sad event that happened 70+ years ago and by a whole different group of people (The Nazis and friends).

And btw, I don't think The Mossad (they could have only done that with American governmental aid) had anything to do with 9/11. As experiences from Watergate, The Pentagon Papers, Wikileaks, and Snowden have revealed, anything stupid that the US government does is always revealed no matter what. Eventually, some guy with balls tells the American Public what their government does and heads always get chopped off. That sort of thing is very unique in the American experience and I can't think of anywhere else where these sorts of things happen. It's one + of the US that I do like.

Post: #11

Post: #12

Post: #13

There are a lot of problems with the official Holocaust story, from the logical (why would the Germans murder millions of prison laborers in the middle of a war for survival when they had a manpower shortage?) to the logistical (how were six million people murdered and cremated in facilities that mathematically could not support anything close to this number and which were clearly not well-designed for extermination purposes?). Another huge red flag is the fact that questioning the Holocaust is literally a crime in many European countries. There is no other historical event in human history that requires this sort of legal protection, including dozens of past genocides. What is it about this specific "Holocaust" that warrants locking up people who question it as modern day heretics? Why does the truth need to be protected from investigation?

A thought experiment: Regardless of your opinion toward the "9/11 Truth" movement, imagine if suddenly the U.S. government passed a law that made questioning the official story of 9/11 a crime. Would that make you more or less suspicious of what actually happened on 9/11? Personally, this would make me much more suspicious. I have the same reaction to the Holocaust narrative simply due to the fact that questioning it is illegal in so many countries. If something is true it does not need the protection of the government to make it so.

Is it criminal to deny the moon landing? No.
Is it criminal to deny the official story of 9/11? No.
Is it criminal to deny that Oswald acted alone? No.
Is it criminal to deny the occurrence of any other historic genocide? No.
Is it criminal to deny the Holocaust? Yes.

Why is that?

Post: #14

(02-20-2014 06:55 PM)scorpion Wrote:  There are a lot of problems with the official Holocaust story, from the logical (why would the Germans murder millions of prison laborers in the middle of a war for survival when they had a manpower shortage?) to the logistical (how were six million people murdered and cremated in facilities that mathematically could not support anything close to this number and which were clearly not well-designed for extermination purposes?). Another huge red flag is the fact that questioning the Holocaust is literally a crime in many European countries. There is no other historical event in human history that requires this sort of legal protection, including dozens of past genocides. What is it about this specific "Holocaust" that warrants locking up people who question it as modern day heretics? Why does the truth need to be protected from investigation?

A thought experiment: Regardless of your opinion toward the "9/11 Truth" movement, imagine if suddenly the U.S. government passed a law that made questioning the official story of 9/11 a crime. Would that make you more or less suspicious of what actually happened on 9/11? Personally, this would make me much more suspicious. I have the same reaction to the Holocaust narrative simply due to the fact that questioning it is illegal in so many countries. If something is true it does not need the protection of the government to make it so.

Is it criminal to deny the moon landing? No.
Is it criminal to deny the official story of 9/11? No.
Is it criminal to deny that Oswald acted alone? No.
Is it criminal to deny the occurrence of any other historic genocide? No.
Is it criminal to deny the Holocaust? Yes.

Why is that?

Post: #15

scorpion,

The Holocaust has been more extensively documented than any crime in human history.

The "questions" that you raise have been answered again and again. To raise them afresh with mock innocence is disingenuous at best.

I do not believe it should be a crime to deny the Holocaust. That does not mean that denying it is not an outrageous and inexcusable lie.