The formatting seems to have got botched, but I think I've parsed it out.

The reason the Polish aggressor question is relevant to me is because I want to be on the same page about the validity of documentation and claims by the Polish Government in Exile and the Polish Underground; these are some of the most crucial documents in understanding what happened in Poland without going through German or Soviet sources, or Western sources that are just further bastardizations of the prior.

The question about the invasion of Poland is also interesting in that it assists in ascertaining motivations, and judging other actions, as well as the validity of those actions. It influences answers to questions such as "Was Germany completely in the right, and just being interfered with?" or "Was Poland allied to Communism?" and so on.

The answer to the questions of aggression can be found in the documentation of the time. This document, sourced for me by a friend living in Poland, is the original order of mobilization from the Polish government. This, combined with the other history of Poland from WWI out, shows us a few different things: 1.) Poland was on high alert for invasion from the Soviets since they experienced a pyrrhic victory in the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. They Second Polish Republic was no ally to Communism, as no good Republic should be. 2.) Poland was on high alert in the 1930s because of the rising threat of aggression from Germany, with good reason: Here is a map of German expansion prior to the war going hot; The orange is territory that Germany started with, post Versailles.

• The marked Rhineland region was a demilitarized zone; Germany marched troops into said zone in the mid 1930s, re-militarizing it; an action met with strongly-worded letters from France and Britain.
• In March of 1938, Germany announced the "Anschluss", translating to "Joining", of Germany and Austria. Without going into it too much, this decision was controversial; many Austrians wanted to retain independence, but some had German heritage and wanted to be re-united. The decision to march the German army through Austria was a signal to those opposing the annexation; resistance will be met with bullets.
• Later in 1938, the Germans demanded Czechoslovakia surrender the Sudetenland, a region inhabited primarily by the Sudeten Germans. This, again, brought the objections of the Western Allies; resolution was found in the Munich Agreement, in which the Germans were granted Sudetenland in exchange for promising they would cease territorial expansions of any kind. This conference did not allow any input from Czechoslovakia, from whom the lands were being taken at that time. Given that they had effectively completely defied the Treaty of Versailles by that point, it was apparent that the Western Allies would do virtually anything to appease and avoid war. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is famously quoted saying, on return from the Munich Conference, "I believe it is peace for our time".
• In a short order later, Czechoslovakia, under continued pressure from Germany, fractured; Czech lands were consumed by Germany, while Poland and Hungry rushed to claim Slovakia, primarily to prevent other powers from securing it (something that partially failed, as much of Slovakia was puppeted by Germany as the "Slovak Republic"). The breakdown of that can be seen here.

By that point, it was clear that Germany was continuing on the path of expansion, and that the Western Allies would do nothing to prevent it. Germany now looked to the East; they were intent on seizing what was effectively a protectorate of Poland; the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk. Closely tied with Poland, it was Poland's only significant port and an absolutely critical trade hub to the nation. Germany demanded it, and Poland refused. To justify war, Germany staged a set of false-flag attacks, including the Gleiwitz incident (Something corroborated by significant testimony form many involved). The next morning, the invasion began.

It was not initiated by Poland. The date on the mobilization notice is the 30th of August; war began two days later. Poland actually attempted to mobilize sooner; they knew what was in store, and wanted to defend against it. They could have raised as much as double the manpower had they had the time, but the British and French strongly compelled them to stop, as they were still under the impression that war could be avoided. If Poland wanted to conquer Germany, they would have mobilized sooner, trained more, and procured more equipment; instead, they faced a losing defensive battle, though they put up significant resistance, the strength of which was extensively underplayed by both the German and Allied propaganda machines; the Germans wanted to appear stronger, and the Allies wanted to have an excuse for their complete military incompetence.

This is where the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact comes in. As per the agreement, Germany wasn't the only country to invade Poland; the Soviets invaded from the east shortly after the Germans invaded from the West. As strong as it's resistance was, Poland had no chance to defend against both powers, given that their primary defensive lines were rivers, which, obviously, can't be used for defense both ways. That should be the final nail in the coffin of the idea that the Polish government might somehow be sympathetic to or allied with Communism.

That said, the importance of the establishment of the motivations and allegiances of the Polish government lies in the understanding and interpretation of the actions of the Polish people and government, as well as the original documentation of the time. Early in the documentary, David Cole claims "there's no picture, plan, or wartime document dealing with homicidal gas chambers or a plan to exterminate the Jews" [12:56]; something that is simply not true. There is documentation from the Polish underground detailing it; evidence that was transmitted to the Government-in-exile relatively early in the war, and suppressed by the Western Allies. For this, we turn to Pilecki's Report.

In 1939, after Poland was defeated, Major Jan Włodarkiewicz and cavalry captain Witold Pilecki founded the Secret Polish Army. In 1940, Pilecki devised and presented a plan to infiltrate Auschwitz, gather intelligence, and organize the inmates to resist. This plan was accepted, and he got himself arrested and placed into the camp. He managed to organize a few inmates, and managed to get communications sent from the Camp to his superiors. His reports detailed atrocities taking place there; he requested that the allies drop supplies or troops into the camp to enable an organized resistance (as the inmates were not strong enough to conduct an effective resistance alone). In 1943, he escaped the camp and wrote "Raport W.", a thorough and detailed report of the camp, one which was signed by the other members involved in the operation, as his prior communications were downplayed or ignored by the Western Allies.

To be fair to Cole, this report was not published in any form until 2000, and not in English until 2012. That said, this documentary, as per admittance in the documentary, is not proof that the Holocaust didn't happen. The video does point out what is now commonly understood, accepted, and taught; that evidence of the specifics of the Holocaust has been manipulated, and, in some instances, fabricated. That said, as I implied before, the two greatest types of evidence we possess, and, frankly, the only evidence possible and trustworthy, is documentation from the time and reports from those that were there. As to the latter, there is sizable room for error; eye witness reports are notorious for failures, and, in such an experience as traumatic as reported, there is significant room for confused distortion. On top of that, it is more or less impossible for an eye-witness to have or provide accurate death tolls first hand. That is why the Pilecki report is valuable; it is a very deliberate report where details were taken at the time they happened, not recalled and written years later.

Those documents, combined with those of the period, and an analysis of other motivations and actions we can verify, are the only ways you could possibly prove such things.

For example; Cole focuses intently on the gas chambers as a supposed proof; yet, the failure in that is that no physical instance of a gas chamber would be proof to one that is truly skeptical. After all, if the Soviets had staged the whole thing, would it be hard to believe that they would have made a gas chamber themselves, executed people in it, and then presented it as evidence? For that matter, if the Soviets were so intent on fabrication, and the Poles so complicit, why wouldn't they have gone more over the top? Why not fill the room for days with Gas in order to stain the walls blue, something that would be an obviously easy way of improving a fabrication. Regardless; it would not be accepted as evidence, and indeed, alone, it is not suitable evidence.

See, the biggest thing to realize here, and that Cole appears to realize as per later interviews (such as the one I sent the quote from; and, to be clear, you believe it may be fabricated, yet he would have had ample opportunity to reverse that statement later, as he reversed his acceptance of the mainstream argument in a later book of his.) is that the issue is not black and white. There is no prove or disprove for most of it; small pieces, yes, but not the whole of it. Most evidence would be anecdotal or subject to propaganda, which can have a whole variety of motivations both for the exaggeration and for the suppression of the actions. It is very possible that figures are wrong, or details of testimonies inaccurate; that is why said figures are presented as estimates.

While I have not personally read it, I will put forth as counter-evidence three different sources:

• One; Raport W; if you are willing to trust English translation, or if you are willing to learn (or already know) Polish and will seek out the original documentation and read it. According to translation, it includes details about genocide performed in the camp, including gassings.
• Two; "The Destruction of the European Jews", a book by historial Raul Hilberg, written in 1961 and revised since as more direct sources are made available. This book is said to be extensively based on writings and testimonies of those that were there; survivors, perpetrators, and the less involved. These documents are both from the period and from the time after.
• Three; the resources available at this website, which contain statements from historians, citations, and even discusses many of the objections raised by David Cole. As per the prior, I have not extensively evaluated any of these resources; I plan on doing so in the coming days.

If you can find refutations to their primary claims or arguments, I would appreciate those here. I don't mean "this isn't right" or things like that; I mean proper documentation or evidence that proves each explicitly to the contrary.

As a closing note; Witold Pilecki's report is not Communist propaganda. After the "liberation" and reoccupation of Poland by the Soviets, Witold continued the underground resistance to the Soviet occupational government. For that, he joined the death count of the thousands if not millions of Poles mercilessly murdered by the Soviet Union.

Apologies for any errors or mistakes; this post took me over two hours to source and write, and I'm just about out of characters, as well.