Must we believe every Holocaust tale that is told?

Question

Today's sad holocaust tale comes from Gloria Lyon.

Gloria was only 12 years old when the evil nazi's made Gloria work in the underground salt mines. The salt mines were 1,200 feet underground. The salt sparkled like diamonds.

Gloria had to work on the V1 and V2 rockets. She was selected to work on the V2 rockets because she had small hands. Gloria heroically helped the Nazi's kill civilians.

The instruments for the V2 rockets Gloria made instantly rusted when they were brought to the surface, because there was no air or moisture in the underground salt mines.

Gloria survived 7 death camps. The Nazi's took her to Auschwitz. 50% of the women on the train to Auschwitz died, and Gloria sat of the bodies of dead women. Gloria says it felt good.

When Gloria arrived at Auschwitz, there were 2 women who were passing out raw macaroni and sugar. Gloria's ration fell through a hole in her dress, so someone beat her unconcious.

Then the Nazi's put Bromo in the Jews soup to make them lose their periods.

One night, a Jewess had to go to the bathroom. But she didn't want to be beaten, so she climbed down inside the outhouse. The poor girl drowned in poo! Gloria met the cousin of the girl who drowned in the outhouse after the war.

One night, the Germans came to take Gloria and other Jews to the gas chambers. The guard, who was Hungarian, had a special key to turn off the electric fence. Then the Hungarian guard said to Gloria, "Jump!". Gloria was naked, and hid all night long in a culvert in sub-zero weather. Then gloria snuck back into the death camp. Then the Nazi's transferred Gloria and some other Jews to another camp.

Gloria was sent to Sweden after the war. She thought the Swedes were going to gas her, so she refused to enter the showers. And even though Gloria weighed only 60 lbs when she was liberated, she weighed 98 lbs when her photo was taken 3 weks after her liberation.

People ask Gloria why her and all her family survived. Gloria tells us it was because she has blue eyes.

http://www.tellingstories.org/holocaust/glyon/gloria_trans/trans7.html

Answer 1

I don't believe any holocaust tale that is told. I don't trust the memories or the agenda of those who claim to have been there. This event has been and continues to be manipulated for political gain by a variety of different groups. Any claim is suspect.

Answer 2

~The sad part of the Holocaust tales is that one never hears of, for instance, Jasenovac where the victims were Serbs and not Jews. Jasenovac was behind only Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Treblinka in death count, and Himmler shut down operations there before terminating operation 14f13 in the other death camps because of the rate at which Jasenovac was producing (killing). Of the 6 million or so Jews who died under the Nazis, only about 2.6 million died in the death camps. The other 3.4 million died in the concentration camps along with the 10 to 13 million others who joined them. The Nazi genocide against the Serbs and Romas was far more successful than that against the Jews as much larger proportions of those populations were exterminated. The Jews constitute a minority of those who died in the concentration and extermination camps as a whole (total dead, maybe 18 million: Jewish dead, 6 million). This is not intended to be anti-semetic, but it is long overdue that the majority of the victims who have been forgotten are remembered. Equally important is the Holocaust that did NOT occur. About 30 million Slavs were targeted for extermination but the heroics of the Soviet forces at Stalingrad turned the tide of the war, brought about the fall of the Third Reich and prevented that planned extinction from becoming reality.

So no, one should not believe 'any' tale of the Holocaust. Any tale of the Holocaust that refers to Jews only as the victims is suspect and erroneous at best, and generally is an outright lie. It ignores the breadth and scope of the genocidal plans of Heydrich and Himmler completely and dishonors the memory of the majority of the victims who died at their hands.

"Gloria's" story itself underscores the point. She refers to seven death camps. These presumably would be Chelmo, Birkenau (Auschwitz II), Treblinka, Belzek, Majdenak, Sobibor and Stutthof. Jasenovac is not on her list. And only a small minority of those killed at Stutthof were Jews ( hell, Stutthof only killed about 65,000 people total anyways and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) could do that many in a average week). Large numbers of those killed in the other 6 camps were gypsies, homosexuals, Poles and Soviet POW's. (Many more Soviets, Poles and Slavs were murdered en masse before reaching the camps). The odds on being transferred from one death camp to another were all but non-existant, and the idea of being shuttled through all of them and still surviving is ludicrous. The death camps were organized to kill. If one was sent there, one died. To escape once was miraculous, to escape 6 times is a joke. The Nazis were too efficient to allow that to happen. Gloria could have gone to dozens of concentration camps and lived to tell her tale, but that is not the tale she purports to tell.

Answer 3

This particular tale seems to be a collection of stories from many people all attributed to one girl. There's some exaggeration, but I'd believe most of the individual elements of the story. I'm just not quite buying all of it happening to one person.

The Holocaust was a tragedy on a huge scale and many thing happened to many people.

Answer 4

No. Many tales often contradict eachother and the "survivors" sometimes seem to be trying to outdo one another by creating ever more ludicrous stories. The Jews do not take kindly to people exposing their fraudalent accounts, as can be seen from the imprisonment of David Irving and Ernst Zündel.

Answer 5

You are fully entitled to be skeptical about any single holocaust story, especially one told by a child.

The problem is that mad Arabs, white supremacists and assorted dimwits then use these minor discrepancies to discount the entire holocaust event... which is sort of like saying the Vietnam War didn't happen because Brian Dennehy claimed to be a veteran when he wasn't.

Answer 6

Agree with the first answerer.
The 'lampshades made of human skin' one is false, though.