Why do some people claim that the Holocaust did not happen?

I've just recently finished a relatively new book called "Legacies of Dachau" by Harold Marcuse a history professor in Santa Barbara. Here's what he wrote regarding the covering up of atrocities by the Nazis:

quote:

In May 1942 plans were completed for a much larger replacement building that included undressing rooms, disinfection chambers for clothing, an airtight gas chamber disguised as a shower, a morgue, and a four oven crematorium with eight incineration chambers - all neatly lined up according to the dictates of streamlined industrial processing. Although only trial gassings were conducted in the gas chamber (death by other causes supplied enough human raw material for the ovens), the furnaces reduced tens of thousands of corpses to ash between the summer of 1942 and the spring of 1945, when the death rate was so high that burials in nearby mass graves supplemented burning as a means of corpse disposal.

In 1943, when the prospect of a German victory in the war began to appear dubious, the Nazi leadership began a campaign to eradicate the physical evidence of its atrocities. Initially, as described above, this program was limited to digging up mass graves and burning the decaying human remains in them. As Allied armies, especially the Soviet Army in eastern Poland, approached the concentration and extermination camps in 1944, the cover-up of the atrocities was expanded to include the evacuation of the concentration camp inmates to camps closer to the heart of the Reich. In July 1944 the inmates of Maidanek (near the present Polish-Ukrainian border) were forced marched west to Auschwitz, and at the end of August the last 7,000 inmates of Natzweiler (near the French-German border) were transported eastward to Dachau.

end quote

Note that he says that the gas chamber at Dachau was used for "trial gassings" although a sign in the gas chamber says it was never used for gassing. The interesting thing, however, is that he thinks that the inmates were evacuated from the camps as part of a cover-up. He mentions that the inmates at Natzweiler were brought to Dachau as part of this "cover-up of the atrocities" but he doesn't mention that the Nazis completely forgot to destroy the gas chamber there, which is still being shown to tourists as a bona-fide gas chamber that was used to kill Jews.

He says that the mass graves were dug up in order to eliminate the evidence of atrocities, but the mass graveyard at Dachau is still there. The Nazis forgot to dig up the bodies there and burn them, and they also neglected to destroy the evidence of the gas chamber at Dachau, although they had two years to accomplish this before the Americans arrived.

Considering that the Nazis began a "campaign to eradicate the physical evidence of its atrocities" in 1943, they didn't get much done before the Americans arrived. They left gas chambers intact at Dachau, Natzweiler, and Mauthausen. They also left gas chambers for the Russians to find at Sachsenhausen and Majdanek. In fact, there was only one gas chamber that they managed to destroy in the Old Reich - the one at Ravensbrück, the women's camp. Today, no one even knows the exact location of the gas chamber that was destroyed there.

Defensive position of educators

vol. 3 no. 2 (Summer, 1982), p. 147ff

Let us take the example of the noises. Those in hiding, we are told, must not make the least sound. This is so much so that, if they cough, they quickly take codeine. The "enemies" could hear them. The walls are that "thin" (25 March 1943). Those "enemies" are very numerous: Lewin, who "knows the whole building well" (1 October 1942), the men from the store, the customers, the deliverymen, the agent, the cleaning woman, the night watchman Slagter, the plumbers, the "health service," the accountant, the police who conduct their searches of the premises, the neighbors both near and far, the owner, etc. It is therefore unlikely and inconceivable that Mrs. Van Daan had the habit of using the vacuum cleaner each day at 12:30 pm (5 August 1943). The vacuum cleaners of that era were, moreover, particularly noisy. I ask: "How is that conceivable?" My question is not purely formal. It is not rhetorical. Its purpose is not to show astonishment. My question is a question. It is necessary to respond to it. That question could be followed with forty other questions concerning noises. It is necessary to explain, for example, the use of an alarm clock (4 August 1943). It is necessary to explain the noisy carpentry work: the removal of a wooden step, the transformation of a door into a swinging cupboard (21 August 1942), the making of a wooden candlestick (7 December 1942). Peter splits wood in the attic in front of the open window (23 February 1944). It involved building with the wood from the attic "a few little cupboards and other odds and ends" (11 July 1942). It even involved constructing in the attic "a little compartment" for working (13 July 1943). There is a nearly constant noise from the radio, from the slammed doors, from the "resounding peal" (6 December 1943), the arguments, the shouts, the yelling, a "noise that was enough to awaken the dead." (9 November 1942). "A great din and disturbance followed I was doubled up with laughter" (10 May 1944). The episode reported on 2 September 1942 is irreconcilable with the necessity of being silent and cautious. There we see those in hiding at dinner. They chatter and laugh. Suddenly, a piercing whistle is heard. And they hear the voice of Peter who shouts through the stove pipe that he will certainly not come down. Mr. Van Daan gets up, his napkin falls and, his face flushed, he shouts: "I've had enough of this." He goes up to the attic and there, resistance and the stamping of feet.

The remarks that I am making here in regard to noises I could repeat in regard to all of the realities of physical and mental life. The Diary even presents the peculiarity that not one aspect of the life that is lived there avoids being either unlikely, incoherent, or absurd. At the time of their arrival in their hiding place, the Franks install some curtains to hide their presence. But, to install curtains at windows which did not have them up until then, is that not the best means of drawing attention to one's arrival? Is that not particularly the case if those curtains are made of pieces of "all different shapes, quality and pattern" (11 July 1942)? In order not to betray their presence, the Franks burn their refuse. But in doing this they call attention to their presence by the smoke that escapes from the roof of a building that is supposed to be uninhabited! They make a fire for the first time on 30 October 1942, although they arrived in that place on 6 July. One asks oneself what they could have done with their refuse for the 116 days of the summer. I recall, on the other hand, that the deliveries of food are enormous. In normal conditions, the persons in hiding and their guests each day consume eight breakfasts, eight to twelve lunches and eight dinners. In nine passages of the book they allude to bad or mediocre or insufficient food. Otherwise the food is abundant and "delicious." Mr. Van Daan "takes a lot of everything" and Dussel takes "enormous helpings" of food (9 August 1943) . On the spot they make wet and dry sausages, strawberry jam, and preserves in jars. Brandy or alcohol, cognac, wines, and cigarettes do not seem to be lacking either. Coffee is so common that one does not understand why the author, enumerating (23 July 1943) what each would wish to do on the day when they would be able to leave that hiding place, says that Mrs. Frank's fondest wish would be to have a cup of coffee.