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Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 06:28:09 -0500
From: "Michael P. Stein" 
Message-Id: <199611121128.GAA01110@access4.digex.net>
To: ihrgreg@kaiwan.com, jamie@voyager.net
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Raven admits existence of Nazi gas chambers and gassing!
References: <199611112031.PAA12560@vixa.voyager.net> <3287C909.2FD3@kaiwan.com>
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA

In article <3287C909.2FD3@kaiwan.com>,
Greg Raven  wrote:
>Jamie McCarthy wrote:
>> 
>> The problem, Mr. Raven, is that you also define the term Holocaust as
>> (1) "the murder of six million Jews," (2) "as a central act of state by
>> the Nazis," (3) "many in gas chambers."
>> (snip)
>
>I do? If you were paying as much attention to what I actually say and
>write on this subject as you do to Hitler's birthday, you would have
>long ago discovered that this is NOT my definition of "the Holocaust."

    If you were paying as much attention to what you wrote as Jamie and I
were, you would know that this was the working definition you used when
you first proposed discussing the subject here.


>Defining 'Holocaust': A proposal
>
>by Greg Raven
>
>Although there are thousands of books about aspects of the plight of
>European Jews during the Second World War, few define with any precision
>what they mean by the term that has come to represent this plight:
>"Holocaust." [...]

    I have been inspired by Mr. Raven's burst of logorrhea to examine
another aspect of the historical record: "gas chamber" and "gassing."  Mr. 
Raven has long denied that Jews were "gassed," and demanded that someone
produce a picture or plan for a Nazi "gas chamber," which he claims never
existed.  But what, really, do these terms mean?

    It is interesting to note that the OED contains a direct definition of
"gas chamber."  But the quote is far different from what Mr. Raven would
like to you believe the Nazis never had.  "Gaschamber: an apparatus used
in microscopy for studying the action of different gases on structures or
organisms."  Now, it is well-known and (to the best of my knowledge) 
admitted by the IHR that the Nazis did conduct lethal medical experiments
on concentration camp inmates.  One of these experiments was the effect of
low pressure on human beings.  However, the effect of low pressure is
really the effect of the higher internal pressure of the organism,
including that of gases contained in the organism.  Therefore the
experiment involved a chamber for studying the action of gases (contained
within the organism) under low-pressure conditions.  It appears that Mr. 
Raven now admits that the Nazis had a gas chamber in Dachau for use in
their low-pressure experiments. 

    Mr. Raven does not escape if we break the term up into its component
parts.  "Chamber" means a compartment of some sort, especially a room.
Does Mr. Raven seriously expect people to believe that the Nazis did not
have rooms?  And leading scientists, including Nobel prize winners, agree
that air is a gas under normal conditions.  If a "gas chamber" is definied
as a room containing gas, then I just slept in a gas chamber.  Again, it
is clear that the Nazis did have gas chambers.

    Even more confusion adheres to the term "gas."  Mr. Raven has denied
that the Nazis "gassed" Jews.  But the very first verb definition is "to
supply with gas."  It beggars belief to say that not a single Jew was
supplied with gas during the Nazi regime.

    Perhaps what Mr. Raven denies is that the Jews were impregnated with
cholorine in the manufacture of bleaching powder.  If so, he is correct,
but then again, no historian, Jewish or otherwise, has ever claimed that
the Nazis did this - so why is he spending so much time propagandizing on
the issue?

    Now we come to a definition that Mr. Raven might well have in mind:
"To be gassed: to be poisoned by a gas."  However, I was under the
impression that the IHR did not deny the existence of the T-4 program
(there is a signed Hitler order for the euthanasia program), nor that some
of the victims of that program were Jews.

    But of all the definitions of "gas" used as a verb that I see in the
OED, the ones I like the best are: "To indulge in 'gas' or empty talk;  to
vapour, to talk idly or boastfully" and "To deceive or impose upon by
talking 'gas'."  Not only does the IHR vigorously agree that every
explicit mention of a Nazi plan or desire to exterminate the Jews was
precisely the first of these two, but Mr. Raven's sophistic and specious
article about the definition of "Holocaust" is a prime example of the
second meaning.

    Posted/emailed to Mr. Raven and Mr. McCarthy.
-- 
Mike Stein			The above represents the Absolute Truth.
POB 10420			Therefore it cannot possibly be the official
Arlington, VA  22210		position of my employer.

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