
What is the value of the "aerial photographs?"
Dear AnswerMan,
Whilst being a firm proponent of the
revisionist cause, I am somewhat dubious about the existence of
the aerial photographs as proclaimed on revisionist sites, for
the same reasons I doubt the gas chambers, namely, that I have
not seen any good series of aerial photographs of the camps,
suitably clear and dated.
Even the sites called 'aerial photographs' do
not show any/ relevant pictures.
Therefore I suggest that if there are no
photos or these are unavailable, then revisionists should cease
to cite them, as this is undermining to the cause of refutation.
John
AnswerMan
Replies:
Thanks for your comments regarding aerial photographs.
I tend to agree with you that the evidence based on
aerial photography is not very strong. That, however,
may be key to understanding the significance of what is
available through aerial photography. Let me explain.
Holocaust revisionism had made many breakthroughs
through the the 1970's. Those breakthroughs resulted in
one of the earlier attempts to refute revisionism. This
attempt was the creation and publication of a document
entitled, "The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective
Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination
Complex." The document was created by Dino A. Brugioni
and Robert G. Poirer in February 1979 and was an
official document of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA.) The abstract explains in brief: "This paper uses
photographs derived from World War II aerial
reconnaissance missions to illustrate the facilities and
operations of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz from June
1944 to January 1945." The authors then
proceeded to use
photographs (some of which you may be familiar with) to
PROVE that the Nazi government ran an extermination
program and used gas chambers to kill large numbers of
inmates. For example on Page 7 of this document, they
write, "Extermination operations in progress at Birkenau
were recorded on aerial photography of 25 August
1944." That photograph includes captions added by
Brugioni that read among others "Gas Chamber and
Crematoria II" "Prisoners on Way to Gas Chambers" "Gas
Chambers and Crematorium III" and "Gas Chamber." Not
only are the captions deceptive, but in several cases
the photographs appear as if they were altered and had
"lines" or "dots" drawn on to depict movements of
"prisoners."
Brugioni later published the book, "Photo Fakery: The
History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and
Manipulation" and has a chapter on the Auschwitz photos
(which of course he claims are accurate and truthful."
For more on this check out the review at:
www.codoh.com(info)/revisionist/review/tr04fakery.html
The revisionist counter-argument has largely been led by
John Ball. I'm sure that it is
his Website that you
reference. Ball published his work "Air Photo Evidence"
largely in response to the CIA claims of "proving" the
Holocaust story via these photographs. Ball later also
included a chapter in Germar Rudolf's anthology
"Dissecting the Holocaust."
Finally, I think I agree that it is not the strength of
revisionist writings which has demonstrated the
inaccuracies and falsehoods of the fundamentalist
Holocaust story, but rather the weakness of the
fundamentalist story itself. Mr. Ball's work does not
prove the revisionist case, but certainly neither do Brugioni and the CIA's work prove the orthodox story.
The value of Ball's work is to highlight the weakness of
the traditional case. Revisionists often find
themselves in the situation of disproving things. It is
my judgment that Ball has done a fine job of refuting
Brugioni. That is the only real value of the aerial
photographs that I have studied.
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