Unfortunately, most people have such an emotional reaction against questioning anything related to the Holocaust they completely give up reason and instead become blind to any scientific argument.
I have not seen any of the footage. Where can I see it? I have seen movies of concentration camps when the American soldiers first set foot in them. But I don't know enough to be sure that it wasn't diseases that killed a lot of people and led to the starved looks, for example. Also, how did anybody survive at all? It seems difficult also to judge pictures from war times from our modern perspective. (corpses were probably a common sight - not so much today).
Not that I want to deny the HC, it is just that I don't take things at face value. Luckily the HC issue is not relevant enough to me to get too involved. It is sufficient to me to know that a lot of people died, and I know that humans can be very evil. Nitpicking on the details is also likely just something the revisionists start.
I suppose it could be some sort of elaborate ruse being forced on us by older generations, crazier myths have formed. But, I find it more likely that the Shoah happened.
That is just emotions though, not science. There are gruesome pictures from any war - I think few POW camps were very pleasant, for example. At the Kosovo war there were also fake pictures from concentration camps distributed by the mainstream press.
Again I don't want to deny the killings, I just feel there are things missing from the story. For example, if all the nazis wanted was to kill, why have concentration camps to begin with. Why were there any survivors at all? I suppose they made the able ones work for the war effort, but then you mention the near death - presumably they were not that able to work anymore.
February 14, 1942: The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.
March 27, 1942: The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.
(quoted in http://www.nizkor.org/qar-complete.cgi)
Anyway, the idea that you can keep a secret that 100,000+ people are in on is just silly. If you really want to know, use sonar to look at the mass graves. Still the allure of conspiracy theories is huge. So it’s easy for people to ignore evidence that does not support their pet theory.
PS: My favorite theory is idea that UFO's where created by the US Air force to misdirect the Russians when people in the middle of the country started seeing strange objects in the sky they would see reports from the US of the same thing. The advantage of this theory is it would take a small number of people to create, and those in the know would have little reason to tell the truth thinking it's a good joke.
There are no mass graves, apparently.
Edit: thanks for the link, sethg. It only highlights the problem - after a while of reading discussions it get's confusing... Maybe one thing to take away is to avoid public discussions and try to find more reliable sources. In this case of course I believe your link, I am just surprised how the other sources I read could get away with it.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/aktion.reinhard/belzec/A...
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/ftp...
(there is of course more evidence available for those who seek it, but I just want to establish that the number of mass graves is greater than zero)
100,000 would be hard, but 10,000 vetted employees threatened with the power of the state for the rest of their lives is definitely done in militaries all over the world.
Look at the never ending revelations about the early Soviet era. Many aspects of the GULAG system are only becoming clear now.
I do not find the argument that governments can't keep secrets convincing at all. Even if the seal isn't airtight there is often such a highly effective ability to muddy the waters the truth becomes impossible to see through the disinformation.
PS: Governments have discovered the best way to keep secrets is to tell as few people as possible. There are not 10,000 people who know how to create the best radar absorbing paint used by the Air force. So, even as we are constantly compromised each leak is limited to what that person or computer system knows.