Mass Graves at Sobibor – 10th Update

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Regarding Greg Gerdes' latest antics on the "CODOH Revisionist Forum" and the VNN thread Archeological Investigations of Treblinka (insofar as they concern my humble person), see my VNN posts # 1525, # 1536, # 1614, # 1615, # 1629 and # 1634. Gerdes is possibly identical with this illustrious "White" specimen, which would certainly fit the fellow’s behavior.

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Part of these posts is related to my visits between 14 and 16 October 2008 to the area of former Sobibor extermination camp, where I was supposed to meet Gerdes, his sister-in-spirit "Eireann Goddess" (EG) and the lady’s attorney and personal bodyguards on 15.10.2008 at 10 hours local time. I showed up, they did not. Not a big surprise for who has come across as many bigmouthed "Revisionist" windbags as I have.

But the reason for my going to Sobibor was not, or not only, an expected confrontation with this scum of mankind. I had booked the trip in the hope that there would be excavations by the Sobibor Archaeological Project at this time, and when this hope did not materialize, I decided that it would nevertheless be worthwhile to familiarize myself with the location and see what the mass grave areas identified in 2001 by Prof. Andrzej Kola and partially visible on air and satellite photographs, which are the subject of this article, looked like from ground perspective. I also wanted to check the accuracy of information on the Wikipedia page about Sobibor, referred to in this article's 3rd Update, that "close to the burial pits, bone fragments still litter the area".

What I found on site is recorded in the photographs and stills from video films available on the RODOH thread My Trip to Sobibor.

The bone fragments I came upon in some parts of the area around the "ash mountain" memorial, especially by the path leading to the memorial and in places where soil had been dug up by wild animals or by robbery diggers, confirmed the Wikipedia information quoted above. I therefore inserted a footnote reference to the aforementioned RODOH thread on the Wikipedia page. Below are some of the photos of bone fragments I took at Sobibor.















Some of the bone fragments I found show clear signs of having been burned. Particularly interesting are the bone fragments white on the outside and black on the inside, of which the photo series above shows two. I presume that these colors show different stages of calcination, the white being the more advanced stage.

Besides bone fragments, I also found lumps of a white-gray substance with a chalk-like consistency that I couldn't identify, which are shown in the photos below:





On the RODOH thread Can I come too?, where my finds are also being discussed, the poster "nexgen586" (post # 652) has speculated that these lumps might consist of lime, either unslaked lime used in body disposal or slaked lime used for construction.

Of no less interest than certain objects lying around there is the aspect of the area itself, namely the holes or budges suggesting abnormal earth movement and the obvious contrast in vegetation growth between various parts of the area. I have tried to convey both in some of my photographs and video film stills, for instance the following:















This is what the soil in the more barren parts of the area around the "ash mountain" looks like:





And this is the aspect of the soil in one of the greener areas:





At this point I felt tempted to dig a deep hole and see if I came upon further bone fragments or other remains. I didn't do so because I didn't have the required permission, but I think this is definitely what should be done, in the context of current endeavors by the Sobibor Archaeological Project and its competitors at University of Hartford to document this Nazi extermination camp and fight Holocaust denial by archaeological means.

For what can be a more effective means to fight "Revisionism" than bringing the contents of the mass graves to the surface, having the human cremation remains analyzed by a forensic expert to certify that they are human remains, quantifying them as precisely as possible, and thoroughly documenting with reports, photographs and video clips every step of the process, ever single core sample, every layer of human ashes and every human bone, bone fragment and tooth that is found?

And what can be less effective in this context than an archaeological reconstruction of the Sobibor extermination camp that does not include a detailed and throurough investigation and documentation of the contents of the Sobibor mass graves?

As I already said in my previous update, the former would be a deadly blow to "Revisionism". The latter, on the other hand, would be much hard work not worth the effort.

It should be added that thoroughly documenting the contents of the mass graves is probably easier, in terms of archaeological work, than identifying the remains of the gas chamber building or other structures or objects in the camp. For in the former respect archaeologists can take advantage of the work done in 2001 by Prof. Andrzej Kola. In an article recently brought to my knowledge, written in 2001 for a bulletin of the Rada ochrony pamieci walk i meczenstwa ("Council for Protection of the Memory of Fighting and Martyrdom", a semi-official Polish entity that is in charge of memorials), Prof. Kola described the location and essential features of the mass graves, and also plotted them on two maps attached to the article. These are the maps:





And this is an English translation of the text describing the mass graves, which I recently obtained from a Polish lady living in Portugal:

Grave no 1 is located in the north - eastern part of hectare 17, just west from the memorial to victims. The site was excavated by 27 drills. Horizontally, it measures 20 x 20 m and is up to 4.30 m deep. It was a body burning grave.

Grave no 2 is located in the western part of the hectare 17, south from the memorial. It was excavated by 28 drills. Horizontally its shape is irregular, measuring at least 20 x 25 m – with its longer side in NS position – and with depth up to 4 metres. It was a body burning grave.

Grave no 3 is located in the south- western part of hectare 11 and north - western part of hectare 17. It was excavated by 17 drills. Horizontally, it's irregular, measuring around 20 x 12 m - with its longer side in NS position. The biggest part of the grave is located under north - western part of the memorial. It’s up to 5.80 m deep. In bottom layers, the grave is bony, with human remains in wax- fat transformation. The upper layers are a mixture of burnt body remains with layers of lime stone, sand and charcoal. The northern part of the grave is located near to northern part of the grave no 4. The more precise location of the graves requires additional research.

Grave no 4. It’s a grave with significant size, located in southern part of hectare 11, as well as northern and central parts of hectare 18. It was excavated by 78 drills. Horizontally, in NS position, it measures 70 x 20-25 m with the depth of around 5m. In bottom layers the grave is bony, with human remains in wax- fat transformation. The upper layers are a mixture of burnt body remains with layers of lime stone, sand and charcoal.

[...]

Grave no 5. It’s not a very vast grave, located in the north-western part of hectare 18. It was excavated by 7 drills. Horizontally, it's irregular, measuring at least 10 – 12 m, with its depth up to 4.90 m. In its bottom layers the grave is bony, with human remains in wax-fat transformation. In the upper layers – burnt body remains.

Grave no 6. It’s located in the central part of hectare 18, south from grave no 5. It was excavated by 22 drills. Horizontally, it’s irregular, measuring at least 15 x 25 m, with its depth up to 3.05 m. In its bottom layers the grave is bony, with human remains in wax-fat transformation. The upper layers - burnt body remains.

Grave no 7. Location of body burning activity, measuring at least 10 x 3 m, with its depth up to 0.90 m, in the central part of hectare 18, around 10-12 m south from the southern side of grave 4. The vast majority of burnt body remains were found in 6 drills. Around, vast ground transformation of an uncertain genesis. Only because of the burnt body remains found, the structure was thought of as a grave. In order to state the function of the place more accurately, further archaeological research needs to be conducted.

Comparing the above description with the second of the maps shown above, I noticed some mistakes in the mention of geographical directions, namely confusions between "north-eastern" and "north-western". These mistakes, as the translator confirmed, are in Prof. Kola's original text. By reading the respective geographical directions correctly, I managed to pinpoint the graves described on the map, as follows:



The mass graves visible on air and satellite photographs, shown before in this article, are pointed out below according to Prof. Kola's numbering sequence (graves 2, 6, 3 and 4), as are the graves not clearly distinguishable from satellite perspective (graves 1, 5 and 7):



So the mass grave areas are known with what seems to me a degree of precision sufficient to delimit the area where further core drilling and excavation should be done. And new technologies like ground-penetrating radar can further help archaeologists determine where exactly they can expect to find human remains.

This being so, and the given the willingness on the part of at least one of the archaeologists involved (Yoram Haimi, director of the Sobibor Archaeological Project) to do a thorough professional job, the only hindrances standing in the way of documenting in detail what's inside the Sobibor mass graves and thus hitting "Revisionists" where it hurts most are "holy ground" considerations on the part of the Polish government, and eventually also religiously motivated objections against "disturbing the dead".

I hope that these hindrances will soon be overcome. Historical and archaeological knowledge would greatly benefit from it, and I can think of no better way to honor the memory of the people murdered at Sobibor than documenting their remains in as much detail as possible.


PS, 01.11.2008

Gerdes' panicky reaction to this update and other Gerdian nonsense on the "CODOH Revisionist Forum" are discussed in my VNN posts # 1650, # 1651 and # 1662.

Mass Graves at Sobibor – 9th Update

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In Greg Gerdes' posts of Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:05 pm and Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:43 pm on the CODOH thread Kola, Arad, others demolished on Sobibor 'gas chambers', the lamentable hysteric tried to rationalize a video about ongoing archaeological research at Sobibor , featured by the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at Hartford University, and an article on that entity’s site related to that same research.

The result of this attempt, as always when Greg Gerdes opens up, is a comedy of feeble-minded nonsense, which I shall now take a closer look at.

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Gerdes

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!

New Sobibor video:

http://admission.hartford.edu/judaic-studies/video2.html

CAUTION!!!

Please have a puke bucket handy, especially at the end.

Not an iota of human remains!

.

In my post # 1405 on the VNN thread Archeological Investigations of Treblinka, I had commented a similar "no human remains" remark by Gerdes as follows:

Maybe that’s because the authors are not as obsessed with human remains as Gerdes is but more interested in the camp’s structures such as the gas chamber building (why would they have a gas chamber building at a "transit camp", Mr. Gerdes?)

Or because a geophysical survey is likely to detect metal and other objects (for the excavation of which permission has already been obtained, if they are not lying close to the surface) and show ground disturbances, but less likely to pinpoint human remains let along bring them to the surface, excavation or core drilling for human remains requiring a permission that has not yet been granted.

Which in turn would mean that, if he has not shot himself in the foot by quoting the above, "forensic historian" Gerdes has at least shown that he knows as much about forensics and archaeology as he knows about history, i.e. as much as a pig knows about Sunday.

After Gerdes didn’t come back to the "human remains" issue in subsequent posts, I thought he had got the message and accordingly wrote the following, in my post # 1416:

Regarding the Hartford article under http://www.hartford.edu/daily/news.asp?id=4581 , I note that the cowardly charlatan is dodging (his favorite sport) a question I asked him in post # 1405:

Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerdes
Nothing.
… is a proper description for the contents of Gerdes’ empty skull. Maybe he can start explaining why the artifacts found include artifacts from the small railway that, according to eyewitness testimonies before West German courts, brought the infirm to the killing area. And what such small railway would be needed for in a "transit camp".

That’s just one of the very many questions chicken-shit Gerdes has run away from since we started this discussion.

But at least Gerdes seems to have understood that electromagnetics, magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar equipment are not exactly suitable to detect human cremation remains, judging by his having dropped the "no human remains mentioned" BS. To find such remains, you have to drill. That’s how any archaeologist in the world does it, as I have been informed.

Gerdes’ howling on CODOH now suggests that I was wrong about Gerdes having understood the possibilities and limitations of non-invasive ground survey technology – unless he was referring to human remains lying above the ground.

Gerdes

What happened to all the bone fragments that were supposed to by lying around?

They are probably still where shown on photographs and mentioned in the Wikipedia page about Sobibor, see this article's 3rd update. However, the archaeologists currently mapping the site are obviously less interested in picking up bone fragments from the ground than in finding personal objects from the victims, camp structures and objects related to the camp's operation, as the Hartford video suggests.

Gerdes

Not one single word about the "huge mass graves" allegedly located by Kola. (They mentioned mass graves, but just in relation to the "green areas."

Poor Gerdes seems to have no problem contradicting himself in the same sentence, and he still has no even remotely plausible explanation as to what, other than mass grave areas, the distinctly greener areas visible on air and satellite photography might be, let alone an explanation as to why these areas, visible with the naked eye on a satellite photo stupidly provided by Gerdes himself:



happen to coincide with four of the mass grave areas identified by Prof. Andrzej Kola in 2001, as I pointed out in previous updates.

Gerdes

But do notice the grid map they had.

Whoever has understood what the poet is trying to tell us here may explain it to me.

Gerdes

Also, the "huge mountain of human remains" didn't have a polished concrete cover. (Which is yet another of the jews lies.) It was only white rock.

Gerdes is obviously referring to an e-mail message he received on 01.09.2008 from Yoram Haimi, which he mentioned in his thread My email to archeological 'expert' Yoram Haimi. In that e-mail Yoram had written (emphasis added):

Concerning the 'huge white mound' in the photo - this is a polished monument which partially covers the remains of ash and human bone fragments (the mass grave). In the photo you should be able to make out three green concentrations of ash and human bone fragments located beyond the monument.

Nothing about concrete here, as we can see – that was again Gerdes’ fantasy at work (readers of the 1st update may remember that Gerdes spun a conspiracy theory about a "concrete top" having been placed on the “ash mountain” monument "to prevent it from being investigated"). And the term "polished" in Yoram’s e-mail, as the same explained to me in a subsequent Skype conversation, was meant to say "Polish" – a Polish monument.

Gerdes

So the "huge mountain of human remains" could be verified by a retarded blind man with a toy plastic shovel.

One could certainly dig into the "ash mountain" and analyze the results – but only after obtaining an official permission to remove the white rock covering the "ash mountain" and to do excavation underneath, which shouldn’t be exactly easy to obtain considering the Polish government’s touchiness about this "holy Polish ground" area. Gerdes’ idea of the real world doesn’t seem to have progressed beyond kindergarten level yet.

Gerdes

Quote from the film:

"We really don't know why these depressions are here."

Phil Reeder.

Say what? They were in the exact area where the "huge mass graves" are alleged to be!

I don't think the video shows if the depressions are in the parts of the area around the monument where Prof. Kola identified mass graves in 2001, but even if they are they may or may not be related to the excavation and backfilling of the mass graves or to subsequent robbery digging. Mr. Reeder is stating that the nature of these depressions must be analyzed instead of jumping to conclusions about what they mean, something that an unscientific howler like Gerdes obviously has trouble understanding.

Gerdes

Remember, Muehlenkamp claimed that there were graves up to 7 meters deep, and all we heard was "it looks like the edge of a TRENCH."

LOL!!!

Muehlenkamp never claimed anything other than what he knows from Prof. Kola’s study or the current archaeological excavations, and Gerdes is obviously trying to make believe that the trench suggested by the GPR and described in the Hartford video by geophysicist Paul Bauman is a) not so deep and b) the only one in the area around the monument. Actually neither of both can be inferred from Mr. Bauman's statements or other parts of the video (i.e. Gerdes got carried away by his wishful thinking), while on the other hand it is significant that a ground pattern suggesting a trench has been detected by GPR in what is possibly one of the mass grave areas identified by Prof. Kola, four of which are visible on my edited enlargement of the pertinent section from the above-mentioned satellite photograph:



If the trench mentioned by Paul Bauman is in one of these areas, the GPR has provided further evidence to the presence of mass graves. Unsurprisingly, Gerdes is unable to grasp this simple logic.

Gerdes

Quote from the film:

"To test the accuracy of the imaging equipment, the research team is probing several target locations."

Say what? Why didn't they test the accuracy of the GPR with the alleged core samples allegedly taken by Kola?

Gerdes knows as well as I do, from our long discussions on VNN, that the current archaeological investigators don't have any core samples from Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation at their disposal, or even information as to the exact spots in the area where these samples were collected (which would be the minimum they need to match GPR finds with core drilling finds). In other words, the liar is (again) trying to make believe, against better knowledge, that Prof. Kola's investigation in 2001 and the current archaeological research, which are actually unrelated to each other, are part of one and the same undertaking.

The "alleged core samples" that Gerdes refers to are the following, already shown in previous updates:







Readers of the aforementioned VNN thread may have noticed that Gerdes has still not managed, or even tried, to provide a plausible alternative explanation as to what, other than ashes of human bone and tissue, the light-gray substance visible on the first two sample photos might be. Or what, other than either lime or bone ash, might be the white substance visible in the third sample. Those core samples must be giving him nightmares, like the satellite photo he shot himself in the foot with.

Gerdes

No wonder Muehlenkamp tucked tail and ran from me - again.

The "again" is referring to my having ignored the last copy-and-paste repetition of Gerdes' list of imbecilic question in post # 1039 on page 51 of our Topix discussion, after having pointed out several times – last in my preceding post # 1038 – that and where those questions had been answered, and commented that

Copying and pasting the same beaten crap, the same idiotic and already answered questions, is all he [Gerdes] can do.

It takes a lot of "Black Knight" over-optimism and wishful thinking to interpret my contemptuously ignoring yet another repetition of Gerdes’ thrashed antics as "running away". Poor Gerdes seems to have damn few if any experiences of success in his miserable life to be seeking for one so badly.

The "tucked tail and ran", as I also just found out by reading Gerdes’ VNN post # 1447, refers to the following statement at the end of my post # 1442:

That’s it for now, folks. I may not visit you every day in the future because you're not on top on my list of priorities (there are more challenging "Revisionists" on RODOH, and my load of serious work has increased, leaving me less time for hobby activities), but I’ll drop by whenever I have time, to laugh at your repetitive antics.

Meanwhile, please keep jumping up and down and showing what a bunch of retarded fanatics you are. The world is watching in amusement.

I’ll let our readers decide if Gerdes' wishful thinking kept him from reading beyond the first sentence, or if he's just lying through his teeth (again).

Gerdes

WARSAW (Reuters)

Quote:

"Polish archaeologists excavating the Nazi death camp in Sobibor said on Friday they had found mass graves at the site. The excavations were the first since World War Two at the former camp, which was subsequently forested over. They could provide valuable new evidence on the number of victims, mainly Jews, who died in the Sobibor gas chambers. According to official Polish accounts, 250,000 people were killed in Sobibor.''We uncovered seven mass graves with an average depth of five meters. In them there were charred human remains and under them remains in a state of decay. That means that in the final stage the victims were burned,'' archaeologist Andrzej Kola was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency telling a news conference. He said the largest grave measured 70 meters by 25 meters, the others 20 by 25 meters.

So why didn't the GPR pick up any of these alleged "huge mass graves?" Or any of Kola's alleged "excavations?"

Well, the GPR picked up at least the trench mentioned by Paul Bauman, see above. And there's nothing to suggest that it's the only trench in the area, however hard Gerdes tries to make believe otherwise.

Gerdes

BTW, Richard Freund (see above - Mapping the Legacy of Sobibor - article), the director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford, is an ordained rabbi.

Gee, a jewish rabi wouldn't lie to us about the Sobibor holocaust, would he? ( http://www.cnn.com/services/presents.opk/after.jesus.intl/bios.htm#richard )

Just in case anyone was wondering what makes Gerdes tick and what the foundations of his "skepticism" are.

Gerdes

More claptrap about this here:

http://www.hartford.edu/greenberg/events/sobibor.asp

"Just as important, Patt says, is the project’s attempts to reveal what the Nazis literally covered up. “There are Holocaust deniers who say, ‘Survivors are making it up. There never was a camp there, who knows if there was an extermination center? These are fantastic, made-up stories.’ And that feeds right into what the Nazis were trying to do,” Patt says. “Being on the site and seeing how successful they were at covering up the crime, makes it that much more important to do this work. Part of my motivation is to say, 65 years later, ‘No, you’re not going to get away with hiding this from history... In a very short time, we’re going to be without any survivors,” says Freund. “It’s important to create a scientific method to investigate survivor accounts, because Holocaust denial is growing.”

That tells you why they are so desperate to create new cognitive illusions.

Ignoring Gerdes’ idiotic conspiracy theory about "cognitive illusions", there’s something I’d like to tell Messrs. Patt and Freund:

With all due respect for what you are doing, if you want to seriously fight Holocaust denial, the scientific method you’ll have to apply is this:







You should obtain the required government permissions and do exhaustive core drilling in the known mass grave areas at Sobibor, and also as much digging as you can.

You should bring the contents of the mass graves to the surface, have the human cremation remains analyzed by a forensic expert to certify that they are human remains, quantify them as precisely as possible, and thoroughly document with reports, photographs and video clips every step of the process, ever single core sample, every layer of human ashes and every human bone, bone fragment and tooth that you find.

If you do that you can deal a deadly blow to Holocaust "Revisionism".

If you don’t, your hard work won’t be worth the effort. Take this from someone who has been debating "Revisionists" and dissecting their arguments for the past eight years.

That said, I’m off to Archeological Investigations of Treblinka to give those lying crackpots another direct thrashing.

Mass Graves at Sobibor – 8th Update

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Starting with my post # 10261 on page 3, the RODOH thread Can I come too? contains further discussion of the mass graves at Sobibor, Prof. Andrzej Kola’s archaeological investigation in 2001 and related issues.