Skeptical of Holocaust story...

[Lozzer]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110331/te ... 34b85.html

I keep coming across the above tale, and it must have taken some guts to divulge his experience after all of these years, but I can't help but express some skepticism about it.

Which Auschwitz did he break into?
How did he break in?
What's the probability of breaking in, especially twice, when only a few hundred out of many thousands ever successfully escaped?
Why would a guard barter with a prisoner for cigarettes?
The SS were pretty desperate to ensure that there wasn't any 'rumors' of Jews being destroyed there, so how did he hear about it?
How did he get to Auschwitz from his PoW camp?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-today/37568-he ... onour.html

[JOZeldenrust]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110331/te ... 34b85.html

I keep coming across the above tale, and it must have taken some guts to divulge his experience after all of these years, but I can't help but express some skepticism about it.

1: Which Auschwitz did he break into?
2: How did he break in?
3: What's the probability of breaking in, especially twice, when only a few hundred out of many thousands ever successfully escaped?
4: Why would a guard barter with a prisoner for cigarettes?
5: The SS were pretty desperate to ensure that there wasn't any 'rumors' of Jews being destroyed there, so how did he hear about it?[/b]
6: How did he get to Auschwitz from his PoW camp?

1: Auschwitz iii, says so in the article.
2: Swapped uniforms with a prisoner from Auschwitz III during their shared forced labour at IG Farben, bribed a guard (most likely the guard at the PoW camp), says so in the article.
3: No idea, but also no idea how you'd go about getting a probability. It's not a usual break in, though: he traded places with someone who was supposed to go into the camp.
4: Especially toward the rnd of WWII, the German forces didn't have access to things like cigarettes. Also, the command structure was crumbling. Informal economic activity (corruption) was bound to flourish.
5: He worked along Auschwitz prisoners as a PoW. Those prisoners in the Auschwitz labour campl new about the extermination camp, so they could've told him. In the article.
6: Not from the PoW camp, from the labour site. There, he traded places with a prisoner from Auschwitz III.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Note the link I posted is about two years old.

[mistermack]

Sounds like a daydream to me. He's waited till he's in his nineties, so not much chance of being proved a liar.
Chances are he's just embroidering the truth, just adding little bits that he wished were true. It's tempting to do, and he is ninety odd. I can't say I've never done it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Video testimony

But he had always assumed that his erstwhile friend had died in the icy death march when the camps were cleared by the SS as the Russians advanced.
Ernst Lobethall and his sisterSusana
Mr Lobethall, later Ernie Lobet, lived a 'long and happy' life in America

Only after the BBC investigation did Mr Avey learn that Mr Lobethall had survived and that it was his smuggled cigarettes that had given him his chance.

The evidence corroborating Mr Avey's story appeared in a video interview that Mr Lobethall had given to the Shoah Foundation, which gathers the testimonies of the camp survivors. He had recorded it towards the end of his life in 1995.

In it he described the soldier he knew only as "Ginger" who smuggled cigarettes, chocolate and even a letter from his sister in England into the Jewish camp for him. He said it was like being given the "Rockefeller Centre".

Trading the cigarettes for favours, Mr Lobethall had heavy soles put on his boots, and that saved his life during the death march in 1945 when tens of thousands had died. Anyone who stumbled had been shot.

"They fell like flies," he recalled in the video.

A special commission in Jerusalem will determine on the basis of the evidence whether Mr Avey receives the honour and becomes one of the "righteous".

BBC don't know shit, of course.

[Aos Si]

Video testimony

But he had always assumed that his erstwhile friend had died in the icy death march when the camps were cleared by the SS as the Russians advanced.
Ernst Lobethall and his sisterSusana
Mr Lobethall, later Ernie Lobet, lived a 'long and happy' life in America

Only after the BBC investigation did Mr Avey learn that Mr Lobethall had survived and that it was his smuggled cigarettes that had given him his chance.

The evidence corroborating Mr Avey's story appeared in a video interview that Mr Lobethall had given to the Shoah Foundation, which gathers the testimonies of the camp survivors. He had recorded it towards the end of his life in 1995.

In it he described the soldier he knew only as "Ginger" who smuggled cigarettes, chocolate and even a letter from his sister in England into the Jewish camp for him. He said it was like being given the "Rockefeller Centre".

Trading the cigarettes for favours, Mr Lobethall had heavy soles put on his boots, and that saved his life during the death march in 1945 when tens of thousands had died. Anyone who stumbled had been shot.

"They fell like flies," he recalled in the video.

A special commission in Jerusalem will determine on the basis of the evidence whether Mr Avey receives the honour and becomes one of the "righteous".

BBC don't know shit, of course.

They aint paid to know shit they are just paid to report on it. They're basically not even supposed to have their own opinion on any story. It's just a story. The truth is a matter of being up to us to determine. You can neither say big fat fucking liar makes up shit about Auschwitz, or Saint retells graphically true story of holocaust. It would be bad reporting and every time the BBC are found biased by the audience the head of the BBC gets burned in a big whicker man, sure its old fashioned but it works.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Did you read the article? An Israeli commission was looking into this in 2009.

Why do I post links?

[Aos Si]

Did you read the article? An Israeli commission was looking into this in 2009.

Why do I post links?

So? What does that have to do with anything?

BBC don't know shit, quite, so who cares, they aint supposed to?

I'm just saying the truthiness of something is not what anyone cares about in terms of news reporting, if you want to blame anyone blame the old sod if he indeed is a big fat liar. If the BBC missed something in their reporting then who the hell cares? just there to write what is happening.

Unless you meant something else then maybe you should explain it?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The link was to a WWII forum where they were looking into this. There was a link there to the story I quoted.

[Aos Si]

The link was to a WWII forum where they were looking into this. There was a link there to the story I quoted.

Er ok I feel I have missed something significant here? I still don't get why you said what you said and what you meant?

Do you just mean The BBC missed the story or were late to it? Spell it out in braille if you have to.

Interwebz is funny.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The link was to a WWII forum where they were looking into this. There was a link there to the story I quoted.

Er ok I feel I have missed something significant here? I still don't get why you said what said and what you meant?

Do you just mean The BBC missed the story or were late to it?

Interwebz is funny.

I was being sarcastic.

[Aos Si]

The link was to a WWII forum where they were looking into this. There was a link there to the story I quoted.

Er ok I feel I have missed something significant here? I still don't get why you said what said and what you meant?

Do you just mean The BBC missed the story or were late to it?

Interwebz is funny.

I was being sarcastic.

Sracasm that is illogical. In what way?



I knew I picked a bad day to give up amphetamines.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's my brand of sarcasm and is usually too convoluted to try to explain. If it makes your head hurt, just surf over it.

[Aos Si]

It's my brand of sarcasm and is usually too convoluted to try to explain. If it makes your head hurt, just surf over it.

Cool I new I picked a bad day to give up glue sniffing.