What is "Holocaust Denial and Distortion"? The [United States Holocaust Memorial Museum article on *"Holocaust Denial and Distortion"*][1] provides a short answer and good starting point to differentiates between hardcore and softcore denialism and relativism.
There is a problem in an [answer][2] on a very sensitive topic. The following points of the answer at least *can* be read in several ways, discussed below:
>**Q** Priorities of trains to Nazi death camps?
> Not a full answer (don't have the time or sources right now) but the
> claim is massively oversimplified.
>
That the claim is an oversimplification is the probable reason for the question. Not having sources or time for an answer that is nevertheless written, is a lame excuse. For, what, exactly?
> Sure, a lot of German rail resources went to supporting the
> concentration camps.
"Support" – what is this? Food, drink, clothes, medicine? Or people going 'up in smoke'?
> But a lot of that wouldn't be of use to the armed forces anyway.
"that" is "support"? Well, yeah, on the other hand starving holocaust victims are of no use at the front?
> Not only are the railway lines in Russia of a different
> gauge from those in the Reich (and indeed most of Europe) so the trains wouldn't even fit on them,
Irrelevant. Victims were transported from most of Europe in the camps located mostly in Poland and Belarus. Further, when the Wehrmacht invaded, tracks were usually quickly converted. –– Does this say that in the East the transports were technically infeasible?
> the lines can only support so many trains of such length passing over them in a given period, trying to put more trains on them wouldn't work.
Assertion without base, as this increase in length, packing density, frequency etc is exactly what happened. Or otherwise: "increase wouldn't work" from what baseline?
> The same problem plagues railroads all the time. E.g. the modern Dutch
> rail system is massively congested. There are constant calls to run
> more trains on it to meet the increased demand for passenger and cargo
> capacity, but there simply isn't enough rail to go around, without
> compromising safety by allowing multiple trains on each section of
> track they can't increase capacity any further.
>
Hmhm. Railroad is awful in general; these days? –– "Safety" *was* compromised, and in case of cattle-boxcars not a requirement in the first place. Again a quibble about general considerations, 'common sense' that did not apply in that situation.
> And with the German army in retreat through Russia and Poland, laying
> more track for them was out of the question. They had neither the
> resources (steel, manpower) nor the time to do so.
>
Until mid-1944 new tracks were laid down frequently, as needed. In Birkenau a new track was installed ending directly at the ramp. The above paragraph denies reality with a general thought that doesn't fit the evidence.
> Combine that with the ever increasing allied air attacks on railheads
> and the trains themselves destroying a lot of the rolling stock in the
> west (especially after D-Day) and not only do the Germans lack the
> amount of rolling stock they need to fully support the troops in the
> east, they also lack the capability of getting that rolling stock to
> the railheads to load and later offload it.
>
Allied attacks after D-day were quite ineffective until the end of 1944. But apart from that, this is again tangential to answering the question. This is the very core of the question: war effort got ever more difficult during losing the war, so why and how did they continue to transport holocaust victims? In essence this just repeats the question with an ever more 'skeptical' undertone. It is unclear into what direction the skepticism is directed.
> And yes, the SS placed ever greater demands on German infrastructure
> to support their operation of the camps.
"SS" *might* be a shift in agency away from willing executioners, located in Reichsbahn, industry etc. But:
"Operation" in reality meant killing. Is this the same meaning here?
> Not so much to "transport Jews to the gas chambers"
Perhaps the meaning *is a different one?*
> but because those camps supplied the slave
> labour needed by German industry to produce the weapons and other
> equipment that was needed by the troops at the front.
This is incompatible with reality. On average [80% of new arrivals in Birkenau were immediately gassed][3]. It is true that a lot of slave labour went into armament as well, but the way it is depicted above is highly misleading. What was produced in Treblinka? Pure death.
> As these inmates died after faster from ever declining living conditions and ever increased physical demands on their labour, they needed to be replaced ever faster.
This is more than contentious. As already stated, camps like Birkenau and Treblinka had absolutely no use for any other 'raw material' than victims to produce nothing else but death.
This is so much into the relativist and denialist camp: "victims died because of 'conditions' ("no death by gas chambers")".
It is intolerable. Yes, from those who were not killed instantly, many died while they waited for their turn to the gas chambers, monooxide vans etc of typhus and whatnot, and therefore 'for other reasons'. But the main point is that they were all designated to be exterminated, whether by hunger, labour, sickness, firing squad, experiments or death march or gas chamber. Emphasising the 'conditions' shifts the blame from intention to circumstance. This is absolutely intolerable.
And not more important in general, but technically for an SE site: does this answer the question or at least contributes to answering it?
> AND the camps needed ever increasing supplies of food for
> those inmates, the failure of which to arrive played no small part in
> the high death toll in the camps later in the war.
>
Again the same melody. There wasn't even [any much food][4] planned or scheduled to arrive for [all those][5] intended to be killed anyway.
> Remember that while there were a few camps specialising in mass
> killing of people, these were few (only 4 of them known to have
> existed I think) and by the time your stated problem played were no
> longer in operation
This is the second time the word "play" is used when talking about the holocaust.
Further: Wrong number, wrong conceptualisation. At least 8 camps were designated or designed for instant death, the rest for intermediately fast death through other means. For the time of operation:
> (they were shut down by late 1943
maybe a typo, but just in a few days we have [Holocaust Remembrance Day.][6] Chosen as the date commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army. On 27 January 1945. Camps were kept in operation until the Soviets approached. For those furthest East that meant an earlier date.
> as it was realised that their operation was a waste of resources that could be used more effectively elsewhere, including sending the inmates to
> other camps for hard labour in stone quaries, mines, and factories).
That is based on what? Jews from a death camp were not relocated to labour camps for any effort other than the 'final solution', they were relocated to kill them at a later time.
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I quoted the entire answer.
It is important to realise what this meta-post question is, and what it isn't:
This is *not* saying the author of the answer is a holocaust denialist. That may be the case or not.
This is *not* saying that the whole answer is holocaust denialism. That may be the case or not.
My good will likes to assume the better alternatives. The author was *perhaps* well meaning. The phrases and statements used were *perhaps* just too ambiguous with a misleading result, but not the intention. Sometimes answers written off-hand from memory rely on false memories or have mixups in them. Nevertheless, it seems the subtle *effects* are quite insidious.
*This is saying* that such an answer is very poorly written, not well researched, not backed up with any references and stating things as fact that are not. This is saying that such a topic needs all the backup it can get. This is saying all those sentences that border on, touch tropes and topics of, or would qualify as denialism need deletion. This is saying that all those errors and imprecisions need edits and backup.
Ask yourself, what happens if one tries to paraphrase and summarise the salient points of that answer? What is left? Is that a desired result?
Requests for corrections were issued in comments and banners. The edits and corrections didn't come, despite the user being active on main.
**This is saying** that I do not understand this community!
On a first reading one might not find much to criticise. But with that paucity of references or sources I wonder about the upvotes anyway, which were three or four in total before the criticism came. This is reason for concern.
But after a closer reading this positive voting attitude should change. And after some of the problems were pointed out in comments, on the one hand the author didn't edit, but on the other hand at least one member in the community upvoted this answer, again!
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**What can be done about this?**
[1]: https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/holocaust-denial-and-distortion
[2]: https://history.stackexchange.com/a/48505/26786
[3]: https://books.google.com/books?id=25vSjtlq734C&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246
[4]: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/daily-life/meals/
[5]: http://auschwitz.net/en/auschwitz-diet/
[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day