The Holocaust as Sacred Myth and Ideology:
Final Reflections in the Wake of the Iran Holocaust Conference
By Paul Grubach
© 2007
I. The Specter
A specter is haunting Western Civilization. It is the specter of Holocaust revisionism. The power elites of Europe, the United States and beyond have entered into holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and US President, British and Canadian Prime Minister, French and Russian Foreign Ministers, German Chancellor and Justice Minister, international Zionism and the Western mass media. The list goes on and on.
In December of 2006, a watershed event took place in the history of Holocaust revisionism, the historical discipline that states there was no Nazi plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews, the "Nazi Gas Chambers" never existed, and the number of Jews killed during WWII is grossly exaggerated. On December 11 and 12, 2006, the Islamic Republic of Iran hosted an international conference during which different viewpoints about the Holocaust and the issues that surround it were presented.
One of the very few, evenhanded descriptions of the conference was put forth by an unlikely source, the influential business and finance publication, Investor’s Business Daily. "The avowed enemy of Israel," they rightly pointed out, "hosted a two-day conference for Holocaust skeptics, at which attendees expressed doubts that the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews during World War II."1 It is important to add there were speakers and attendees that accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust. This was the first time in history, however, that a sovereign government hosted a conference in which Holocaust revisionist viewpoints were welcomed.
In general, world reaction was both swift and highly negative. Leaders in Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, Ottawa, Moscow and numerous other capitols put forth harshly worded condemnations. A Dec. 13, 2006 Yahoo news missive stated: "Israel spearheaded the international outcry over the meeting."2 Indeed, the ensuing international reaction unfolded like the outcome of a secret plan formulated in the inner sanctums of the Israeli Knesset.
According to news sources, the highest echelon of the Catholic Church, the Vatican, called "the Holocaust an ‘immense tragedy’ for all humanity, in a statement admitting of no doubt that the mass murder took place."3 The White House said in a press statement on Dec. 11 that the Holocaust gathering in Iran is an "affront to the entire civilized world, as well as the traditional Iranian values of tolerance and mutual respect."4
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair called the Iranian conference "shocking beyond belief." German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage: "I would like to make clear that we reject with all our strength the conference taking place in Iran about the supposed nonexistence of the Holocaust." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper alleged that "the conference hosted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the sole purpose of denying the Holocaust is an offence to all Canadians." French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy complained that "The conference represents a resurgence of ‘revisionist’ theories which are quite simply not acceptable." The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a declaration, saying that "Russia shares the determination of the UN general assembly not to allow the denial of the Holocaust."5
Here, the international Holocaust lobby made a mass "appeal to authority." They prodded numerous governments to make these public condemnations because they know full well that large numbers of people will blindly believe the claim—"The Holocaust happened"--if people in positions of authority say it is "true," irregardless of how flimsy and weak the evidence for the Holocaust doctrine may be. As a matter of fact, it is a very easy task to show how questionable the traditional view of the Holocaust really is.6
II. The Weakness of the Holocaust Doctrine
Expressing the etched-in-stone official truth, the New York Times declared: "The two day-meeting included no attempt to come to terms with the nature of the well-documented Nazi slaughter, offering only a platform to those pursuing the fantasy that it never happened."7
This is false on two counts. First, there were speakers who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust, and disputed the revisionist viewpoint. For example, a December 13, 2006, article in their own newspaper (!) pointed out that an Iranian scholar insisted that certain aspects of the Holocaust are well documented.8
Second, it is very easy to show that the alleged Holocaust is not well-documented. To put it mildly, it is based upon highly questionable speculations. Consider just a very small sample of the evidence a revisionist could muster. These are not even the best examples, just the simplest to explain in a short amount of space.
Holocaust historian Leon Poliakov pointed out decades ago that there are no documents to prove that the Nazis ever had any plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe: "[T]he campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness. Inferences, psychological considerations, and third- or fourth-hand reports enable us to reconstruct its development with considerable accuracy. Certain details, however, must remain forever unknown. The three or four people chiefly involved in the actual drawing up of the plan for total extermination are dead and no documents have survived; perhaps none ever existed."9
In short, the "evidence" that "proves" the existence of an alleged Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is simply the guesswork of Holocaust historians. Hard documentary proof is missing.
One of the foremost Holocaust historians, Raul Hilberg, admitted that scientific proof for the existence of the "Hitler gas chambers" is missing. No authentic and genuine autopsy report exists to show that Jews were killed with poison gas. No one has ever produced any photographs of Jews being gassed.10
As the late Jean-Claude Pressac (widely considered to be an authority on the alleged Auschwitz gas chambers) was forced to admit, in the blueprints, construction documents and work orders that trace the construction and subsequent use of the buildings that allegedly housed the "Auschwitz gas chambers," there is no explicit reference to the use of gas chambers or Zyklon B for homicidal purposes.11
Holocaust historian Robert Jan van Pelt conceded that the "evidence" for the mass killings of Jews at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec—where allegedly millions were murdered--is sparse at best. In reference to these three camps, he wrote: "There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that can compare to that given by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Hoss, no significant remains, and few archival sources."12
Dr. van Pelt also admits that the wartime claims that Jews were electrocuted en masse in "electrocution chambers" at Belzec and on "electric conveyor belts" at Auschwitz are also falsehoods.13 If the evidence that "proves" that Jews were electrocuted en masse is bogus, isn’t it also possible that the "evidence" that "proves" that Jews were murdered in "gas chambers" is also bogus, or at least very suspect?
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt conceded that the story that the Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses is apparently another war time falsehood. She also pointed to evidence that leads one to believe that the eyewitness testimony that forms most of the "proof" of the traditional view of the Holocaust is unreliable.14
Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer admitted that the formerly "etched-in-stone-fact" that four million souls were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz was a deliberate myth created to serve an ulterior political agenda. This shows that conspiracy (premeditated distortions introduced for political ends) was involved in the shaping of the Holocaust doctrine.15
The list of highly questionable claims, falsehoods, contradictions, and absurdities in the traditional Holocaust doctrine is seemingly endless.16
III. Media Responses
Condemnations of the conference coming from mainstream media sources in the West were similar to government condemnations. The editorial that appeared in Forward, perhaps the US’s most important Jewish newspaper, was typical. Entitled "The Conclave of Hate," it stated; "[T]he Iranian regime may have done the world a favor when it decided to host this week’s international gathering of Holocaust deniers. By rolling out the red carpet for the ugliest gathering in recent memory of frauds, nutballs, white racists and unreconstructed Nazis from every dark corner of the world, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his bully boys have made plainer than ever the sort of people they are. Their bizarre festival of hate has driven home to the world community, in a way that nothing else could do, just who it is that sits in Tehran and schemes to build a nuclear bomb."17
The pattern of Western news accounts and editorials about the conference were remarkably similar. They simply condemned those who attended with derogatory epithets. They stated that the traditional view of the Holocaust is an indisputable fact. They refused to fairly examine the alternative viewpoint, the case for Holocaust revisionism. And finally, they promoted outright lies about the conference. These are stock-in-trade tactics as to how mainstream Western news sources deal with Holocaust revisionism, and as we shall see, are comparable to the propaganda techniques used by totalitarian regimes to control the thinking of the masses. Only on rare occasions were there fair and honest reports and blurbs about the Iranian meeting.
IV. Mass Propaganda and the Holocaust Ideology
The Jewish owned New York Times is the most important newspaper in the United States, and most certainly is among the world’s most respected news sources. For the United States at least, it is "the paper of record," and to a large extent, all news in the nation, particularly foreign, is what the Times calls news. The Times not only reflects and mirrors what many power elites are thinking, they create said thinking. With few exceptions, how the Times dealt with the Iran Holocaust conference illustrates how the mainstream Western media in general dealt with the conference.
In his recently published book, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust, historian Jeffrey Herf brought attention to the mass propaganda techniques and the "basic laws" of mass influence that were advocated by certain German National Socialists. They are: "intellectual simplification, limitation to a few key points, repetition of those points, focus on one subjective standpoint to the exclusion of others, and appeal to the emotions and to stark contrasts between good and bad or truth and lies, rather than to nuances or shades of gray."18
With these "basic laws of mass propaganda" in mind, let us examine a good portion of what the Times published about the Iran Holocaust conference.
The first article, before the conference began, was somewhat balanced and fair. It was entitled "Iran Invites Scholars to Assess Holocaust as History or Fiction." Here are some excerpts: "[T]he conference to be held in Tehran…would include more than 60 scholars from 30 countries and would examine a range of issues, including whether the gas chambers were actually used."19 The article further points out that Iran’s president Ahmadinejad stated on several occasions the Holocaust is exaggerated or it is an outright myth, and it has been used as a propaganda tool to promote Israel’s interests.
The Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi was quoted as saying the conference would "provide the opportunity for scholars from both sides to give their papers in freedom and without preconceived ideas." Apparently, here is where objective reporting on the conference ends. The ensuing articles I have examined are, for the most part, a mirror image of the mass propaganda techniques of a controlled media.
The news report on December 12 begins with these words: "Iran held a gathering that included Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars and white supremacists from around the world on Monday under the guise of a conference to ‘debate’ the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews."20
This is grossly inaccurate. They failed to point out, for example, that the conference attendees included leftist scholars, like France’s Serge Thion, a respected sociologist. Nor did they note that long-time American free speech advocate, Bradley Smith, was a speaker. Smith’s wife is of Mexican descent, and his ex was Jewish—hardly the "right stuff" for the "white supremacist" mold.
Furthermore, author, newspaper correspondent, and radio talk show host Michael Collins Piper, who was present at the conference, pointed out that there were a considerable number of non-European intellectuals present, thus falsifying the Times’s insinuation that it was a "gathering of white supremacists." He wrote: "[T]he conference was a diverse and eclectic gathering which not only featured a group of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish rabbis but also included Black speakers from the African continent, as well as Palestinian Muslim attendees and European academics who insisted the Holocaust, as it is popularly remembered, did happen, and that it was a major tragedy in which many millions of Jews were deliberately exterminated."21
Elsewhere Piper wrote that many speakers were "people of color from Africa and Asia and throughout the Middle East. The Iran conference was hardly the so-called ‘white supremacist’ or ‘racist’ conclave that the American media falsely portrayed."22
While noting that former Ku Klux Klan leader Dr. David Duke attended, they made a demonstrably false claim about his speech. They charged that Duke said "the gas chambers in which millions perished actually did not exist." This is blatantly false, and the reader is encouraged to listen to or read Duke’s speech in total. Nowhere does he say that the "gas chambers" did or did not exist. He simply argued for free enquiry on this issue.23
Let us move onto the Dec. 13 article. It states: "Despite promises of open-mindedness, when one participant talked about the scholarship confirming the Holocaust, his views were quickly dismissed. That speaker, an Iranian historian, Gholamreza Vatandoust, from Shiraz University, said, ‘Some facts about the Holocaust have been documented.’ But he was criticized immediately by Robert Faurisson, a French academic, who said he had never found documents to support the Holocaust."24
The Dec. 13 article continues: "One of the few ultra-Orthodox rabbis at the conference, Moshe Ayre Friedman from Austria, said, ‘I am not a denier of the Holocaust, but I think it is legitimate to cast doubt on some statistics.’"
What this suggests is that the Conference was not a "gathering of Holocaust deniers and white supremacists," as was stated at the beginning of the article. There were indeed attendees who challenged the revisionist view of the Holocaust, and there were also Jewish people present who are not "white supremacists."
As previously stated, attendee Michael Collins Piper pointed out that there were quite a few speakers who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust. In his own words: "Many [speakers] took the position that the basic story of the Holocaust, as it has been told in the media, was essentially what happened, but that whatever happened—to whatever degree—did not justify Israel’s ongoing treatment of the Palestinian people."25
Here is the most important observation. The Times made no attempt in any of their articles to list the arguments and evidence of the Holocaust revisionists, and then objectively examine them. Specifically, they made no attempt to fairly examine the arguments and evidence in the presentations of Dr. Robert Faurisson and Dr. Frederick Toben.26
This is a mass propaganda tactic of a totalitarian regime. They focused on one subjective viewpoint, their traditional view of the Holocaust, and excluded the revisionist arguments and evidence. As Jeffrey Herf pointed out, this was a major feature of National Socialist mass propaganda: the focus on one subjective viewpoint and the exclusion of others.
Let us now move on to the December 15, 2006, editorial. It begins: "This week’s conference in Iran of Holocaust deniers and racists was, predictably, a circus of Holocaust denial and racism argued by discredited scholars and even the former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke."27
This is proven wrong by their own articles. In the December 13 article we learned that there were people present who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust and challenged the revisionist view, and that there were Jewish rabbis present. Furthermore, as attendee Michael Collins Piper pointed out, there were scholars and intellectuals present from Asia and Africa, thus falsifying their insinuation that it was conference of " white racists."
The editorial continues: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran apparently believes his claims that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis is a myth ginned up to justify the creation of the state of Israel. This is frightening enough. Couple that with his calls to wipe Israel off the map…"
They say that it is "frightening" if someone does not believe that the Nazis killed six million Jews. Yet, according to their morality, it is not "frightening" for them to sympathetically review a book that claims a belief in God and religion is a dangerous illusion. In the October 22, 2006, issue of their New York Times Book Review, there was a long and calm discussion of the anti-Christian/anti-Muslim, atheistic tome of scientist Richard Dawkins.
Why is it "frightening" to believe that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis is a myth, yet it is not frightening to argue that God and all religion are one big delusion? What the Times choose to label as a "frightening belief" tell us more about their ulterior Jewish-Zionist double standard than about reality.
Furthermore, it is totally false that Ahmandinejad called for "Israel to be wiped off of the map." According to University of Michigan Professor and Middle East scholar, Juan Cole, what he did say is this: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."28
Ahmadinejad further clarified what he meant at the close of the conference: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom." He also called for elections among "Jews, Christians, and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."29
President Ahmadinejad proposed that the Zionist state be replaced by a democratic state where the different ethnic groups would function as social and political equals. This is what he meant when he said that Israel would disappear as the Soviet Union disappeared. Yet, the distortion that he said that "Israel should be wiped off the map," thus implying that the Israeli people should be destroyed, is a lie that was repeated over and over again by mainstream media sources and influential groups.30
As Professor Arthur Butz noted, one of the major implications of his revisionist classic, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, is that "the media in the western democracies are exposed as constituting a lie machine of vaster extent than even many of the more independent minded have perceived."31 The manner in which the New York Times covered the Iran Holocaust conference seems to confirm this viewpoint.
V. God, Religion, Science, and the Holocaust Ideology
Future historians will find it utterly ironic that the reactions to the conference on the part of Western governments and mainstream media sources actually vindicated the now famous observation of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, the very man and viewpoints who these power elites want to ostracize, demonize and condemn.
In reference to political Zionism and certain Western governments, President Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying: "They have fabricated a legend under the name of Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves. If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."32
This was a statement "heard around the world." It sometimes takes a critic outside of a particular culture to bring to the world’s attention the hypocrisy and cant that is corrupting said culture. By making the preceding statement, President Ahmadinejad has done such a service to both Western society and the world at large, for he has exposed the hypocrisy and double standard that plagues Western society—a society that claims it supports freedom of speech and has no state enforced religions.
In the late 1960s, Jewish intellectual Hugh Schonfeld published a book entitled The Passover Plot, its thesis being that Christianity is one big, bald faced lie. According to Schonfeld, Jesus Christ planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. He arranged to be drugged on the cross, simulating death so that he could later be safely removed and thus bear out the Messianic prophesies. Schonfeld was never censored by publishers, the mass media or publicly condemned by Western governments, nor was he deported from his home in London to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings.33
His book was published by a respected, United States mainstream publisher (Bantam Books) and sympathetically reviewed and discussed in respected mainstream US media outlets.34
In the early 1970s, University of Manchester intellectual John Allegro published his The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. The book’s thesis is that Christianity is one big fraud, and the concept of the Christian God is a drug-induced hallucination. The man we know as Jesus Christ was the illusory personification of a fertility cult based on the use of a psychedelic drug. Allegro’s book was published by respected mainstream publishers in the United States (Doubleday, Bantam), and discussed in respected US media outlets.35 Once again, Allegro was never publicly condemned by Western governments, censored by mainstream publishers, and then deported to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings.
Consider the case of Dr. Michael Shermer, a boring and intellectually mediocre atheist that bolstered his career by promoting the Holocaust ideology.36 Shermer, founder of Skeptics Society, has a long track record of attacking religion and the concept of God. Shermer suffers no persecution or harassment. Quite the contrary! He is a recognized figure in academic circles and is also a media celebrity.
Just recently, the renowned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, had his atheistic, very anti-religious book, The God Delusion, published by the respected and mainstream publishing houses, Houghton Mifflin and Bantam Press. Dawkins was given time to present his atheistic viewpoints to millions of listeners in his British Broadcasting Corporation documentary. His arguments were given serious consideration in the October 22, 2006, New York Times Book Review and Britian’s September 23, 2006, Guardian Unlimited . The book is openly promoted and sold at large book dealers throughout the US and Great Britain. Western government and mass media reaction were similar. Western governments were silent, and mainstream media sources promoted it.
In March of 2007, the popular Discovery Channel featured a documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which attacked the fundamental tenets of the Christian religion. It claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, fathered a child, and never rose from the dead. That this is offensive to millions of Christians goes without saying.37
The case of French high school philosophy teacher and author, Robert Redeker, illustrates the hypocrisy and double standard most clearly. In a newspaper commentary in the French newspaper, Le Figaro, he made a scathing attack upon the Prophet Mohammed and the Islamic religion. He wrote that Mohammed was a "a merciless warlord and looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and polygamist," and he labeled the Koran "a book of incredible violence." After receiving death threats, including one from an online Islamic forum, he went into hiding under police protection.38
The French government came to the defense of Mr. Redeker. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called the threats "unacceptable." He then added this most blatant lie: "We are in a democracy. Everyone has the right to express his views freely, while respecting others, of course."39
That this is an outrageous lie is demonstrated by the case the Holocaust revisionist scholar, Dr. Robert Faurisson. According to the European Jewish Press, he "was removed from his university chair on the basis of his [Holocaust revisionist] views under the Gayssot Act, a French statute passed in 1990 that prohibits Holocaust denial." Furthermore, French President Jacques Chirac ordered a probe into the revisionist comments made by the intrepid revisionist scholar at the Iranian Holocaust conference, with the possibility being that the French government could bring new charges against him for "Holocaust denial." He was already given a three-month suspended jail term for Holocaust revisionist remarks he made on Iranian television in October 2006.40
So let’s get things perfectly straight. The French government defends a man who insults the Islamic religion, despite the fact that his statements are offensive to millions of Muslims. Indeed, they defended his right to freedom of speech in a well publicized statement and offer him police protection as well. Yet, this same French government allows a French professor to be removed from his university chair, orders probes into his comments, and gives him suspended jail sentences because of his Holocaust revisionist beliefs. This clearly falsifies Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin hypocritical claim that France is "democracy where everyone has the right to express his views freely, while respecting others…" One has the right to insult and attack the Islamic religion, but Holocaust revisionists are not allowed to freely express their viewpoints.
The pattern is the same in all of these cases. Western governments and mass media outlets did not censor and openly condemn these attacks upon God and religion, despite the fact that they are offensive to millions of Christians and Muslims. The mass media openly promoted these publications, and Western governments were silent. Additionally, in the case of the attack upon Islam in France by Robert Redeker, the government even offered support.
Yet, when President Ahmadinejad convened a conference that questioned the veracity of the Holocaust doctrine, Western governments and media giants joined in chorus to loudly and vehemently condemn him. In the Iranian leader’s own words: "If someone in their country denies God, nobody says anything. But if somebody rejects the Massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism start to scream." And scream they did! This in itself vindicated the claim of President Ahmadinejad that Western power elites have raised the Holocaust ideology above God and religion.
A "theocracy" is a form of government in which society’s rulers claim their authority to rule has been given to them directly by a Deity.41 Under a theocratic form of government, the concept of God and religion is given the status of "not-criticizable" or "not-disprovable." The concept of God is to be accepted without question—period. Anyone who does not accept the existence of God, or attempts to disprove God’s existence, is, by definition, "evil and immoral," and is subject to severe persecution. In theocratic societies, the existence of God is not a matter of debate.
A similar statement could be made for the Holocaust ideology in current Western society; it is not a matter of dispute. Expressing a dictum that stands firm in the Western media and academia, Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt has authoritatively declared: "The existence of the Holocaust [is] not a matter of debate."42
Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg claimed that in fourth century Europe "the Christian religion was not one of many religions, but the true religion, the only one. Those who were not in its fold were either ignorant or in error."43 In our society, the Holocaust doctrine is not one of many interpretations, but the true interpretation, the only one. Those who are not in its fold are, by definition, ignorant and evil Nazis, anti-Semites, and deluded fanatics.44
Throughout the United States and much of Europe, the Holocaust ideology has attained the status that the concept of God has in theocratic societies. It is to be accepted without question, a priori. And anyone who questions it or rejects it risks being censored, severely persecuted or imprisoned.
In early 1979, in France’s most respected newspaper, Le Monde, 34 historians issued a manifesto in support of the Holocaust ideology. The concluding paragraph asserts that mass gassings of Jews did take place and that no one can deny their existence without committing an outrage on the truth: "The question of how technically such a mass murder was possible should not be raised. It was technically possible because it occurred. This is the necessary starting point for all historical investigations of the subject. It has fallen to us to recall that point with due simplicity: there is not nor can there be a debate over the existence of the gas chambers."45
Once again, in a theocratic society, God’s existence is self-evident and must be accepted, a priori…period! In our society, the existence of the "Nazi gas chambers" is "self-evident" and must be accepted, a priori.
Not only has the Holocaust doctrine been raised above God and religion, it has also been raised above science itself, for it can no longer be objectively examined by critics. Iran offered to send a team of experts to Poland to examine the evidence for the alleged Holocaust.46 The plan was immediately rejected by Polish officials. "Under no circumstances should we permit this," insisted Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Miller. "This is beyond all imaginable norms that such a thing is discussed," he added.47
Once again, this behavior lends even more credence to Ahmadinejad’s claims. He stated: "They have fabricated a legend under the name of the Massacre of the Jews."
By refusing to allow the Iranians to come and evaluate the evidence, Poland is lending credence to his claim that at least some of the evidence for the Holocaust is indeed fabricated, and Western governments are afraid that he will expose this to the world. But just as importantly, by refusing skeptics the right to question the evidence, the Holocaust doctrine has been placed beyond the pale of scientific analysis.
Karl Popper, a prominent philosopher of science, proposed that a statement (a theory, a conjecture) has the status of belonging to the empirical sciences if, and only if, it is potentially falsifiable.48 If the Holocaust cannot be questioned nor debated and its evidence cannot be evaluated by skeptics, and it must be blindly accepted as a "fact," then it is not falsifiable. If it is not falsifiable, then it is not a scientific theory. By making the Holocaust doctrine non-falsifiable, Western power elites have made it into a self-perpetuating, quasi-religious [WHOLLY RELIGIOUS] dogma.
The evolutionary psychologist, Professor Kevin MacDonald, points out that certain 20th-century intellectual movements dominated by Jews have developed a distinct flavor of authoritarianism. For example, the Psychoanalytic Movement was founded by mostly Jews, and it remained "a highly authoritarian movement in which group boundaries are rigidly maintained and in which heretics are expelled."49
Historical Jewish culture has been characterized by being authoritarian and collectivist. Professor MacDonald explains: "The precedence of community control over individual behavior, a fundamental feature of a collectivist type of society, is a highly salient feature of mainstream Judaism…"50 Jewish groups have projected this cultural trait into the Holocaust doctrine. It is a highly authoritarian ideology that brooks no dissent and persecutes heretics. All throughout the so-called "free West" people can suffer severe persecution or even a prison term for simply questioning it.
Fred Leuchter, at one time the foremost expert in the United States on gas chamber technology, had his career destroyed and marriage ruined because he published a report that shows the so-called "Auschwitz gas chambers" never existed. German scientist Germar Rudolf and Revisionist activist Ernst Zundel are presently in German prisons for rejecting the Holocaust ideology. British historian David Irving spent thirteen months in an Austrian prison for allegedly violating "Holocaust denial laws." In numerous countries throughout Europe, one can end up in prison for years for rejecting the Holocaust ideology. Jewish groups were behind the creation and implementation of these oppressive laws.51
VI. The Holocaust as Sacred Myth
At the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allies alleged that the Germans exterminated four million people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Until 1990, a memorial plaque at Auschwitz read: 'Four Million People Suffered and Died Here at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers Between the Years 1940 and 1945.'"52 During a June 1979 visit to the camp, Pope John Paul II stood before this memorial and prayed for and blessed the four million victims.53
In July 1990, the Polish government's Auschwitz State Museum, along with Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center, conceded that the four million figure was a gross exaggeration, and references to it were accordingly removed from the Auschwitz monument. Israeli and Polish officials announced a tentative revised toll of at least 1.1 million dead, about 90 percent being Jews from almost every country in Europe.54
As previously noted, the claim that the Germans exterminated four million people at Auschwitz is now admitted to be a deliberate myth and a politically inspired falsehood.55
In his speech at the conference, Revisionist diplomat Dr. Frederick Toben rightly pointed out that, once again, John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, blessed the alleged 1.5 million victims, which shows that there is indeed a concerted effort to elevate the Holocaust ideology to the status of "sacred myth."56
In a political sense, here is how "myth" is defined: "Any false belief that is (a) of symbolic importance in the emotional life of the believer, (b) based in a need to believe rather than in rational conviction, (c) associated with stories that are accepted not as history (or not on historical evidence), but as illustrations or parables, (d) endowed with a ‘sacred’ quality, which it can confer on the social relations, institutions or political arrangements associated with it, so granting them an air of legitimacy."57
In regard to the politically inspired falsehood that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz, here is how the late Pope John Paul II proposed it is to be used. In the words of the New York Times: "His voice going hoarse on the sixth day of the visit to his native Poland, the Pope asked that all his listeners commit themselves to the care of human beings and the oppressed, in testimony for the four million—including two and a half million Jews—who died in the camps he could see from the raised altar platform."58
Notice how the false "four million murdered" figure fits the criteria for "myth." It is a demonstrably false belief that had taken on a symbolic importance in the emotional life of people. The Pope proposed that it should be a motivating force for social action. The four million figure was not based in rational analysis, but rather in a "need to believe" for an ulterior political reason. And finally, the four million falsehood was endowed by the Pope himself with a ‘sacred’ quality, which it can confer on the social relations, institutions or political arrangements associated with it, so granting them an air of legitimacy.
To the Time’s credit, they did point out how the Holocaust ideology, inclusive of the four million falsehood, granted an air of legitimacy to the political arrangements in the year of 1979: "[P]oland’s suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany is still viewed as a source of unity, and the country’s liberation by the Red Army is regarded as the imprint of the legitimacy of the country’s Marxist leadership."59
The "four million murdered at Auschwitz" figure is gone, and Poland’s Marxist leadership has been consigned to the dustbin of history. But the need to believe in the Auschwitz mythos survives. It has been "revised" to lend an air of legitimacy to contemporary sociopolitical interests.
Professor van Pelt revealed reasons why Poland has a vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. In 1947, the Polish government enacted a law that commemorated the martyrdom of Poland and other nations at the Auschwitz concentration camp.60 Elsewhere, he wrote: "As relations between the East and West deteriorated after the war, with the largest part of Germany becoming part of NATO and with that country refusing to recognize the legitimacy of postwar Polish annexation of the former German territories of East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia, the number of victims became a political issue. The communist rulers of Poland were unwilling to give an inch on their claims against Germany as long as the Bonn government did not recognize the territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of Poland, and therefore they continued to maintain, as a matter of policy, that 4 million people had been killed in Auschwitz."61
Whether or not the Polish position vis-à-vis the disputed territories is legitimate or not, Polish authorities still have an ulterior vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. Not only does it serve as a cornerstone of Polish nationalism, but it provides a "safeguard" against any future German demand that Poland give back the disputed territories to Germany. Imprisoned Holocaust revisionist scientist Germar Rudolf summed it up perfectly when he wrote; "Many Poles fear in their hearts that the post-war state of Poland stands and falls with Auschwitz."62
Surely, there are also non-Jewish interests and governments behind the promotion of the Holocaust ideology. The late revisionist historian, Charles Weber, stated it thusly: "As corrosive, divisive and destructive as the ‘Holocaust’ material and extermination thesis are, we must certainly not consider Jews exclusively responsible for their continued propagation."63
Consider the case of Russia. Here is the statement of the Russian representative to the United Nations in regard to the recent United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial: "[T]he Red Army had freed the Auschwitz death camp, one of the largest. The memory of the heroism of the Soviet soldiers and the many millions of victims in his country could never reconcile itself with those of ‘opportunistic political interest’ who sought to distort the significance of that history."64
Clearly, the Holocaust ideology casts the Russian people in the role of "heroic liberators." Any repudiation of the doctrine would very well shine the spotlight on the crimes, genocide and oppression of the Stalinist regime, with the end result being the demolition of a pillar of Russian patriotic ideology, and the world-wide realization that Stalinist Communism that came from Russia was a more oppressive and evil system than Nazism ever was. Even the bitter intellectual opponent of Holocaust revisionism, Deborah Lipstadt, admits that Stalin killed more people than Hitler ever did.65
Once again, Revisionist Charles Weber stated it thusly: "The ‘Holocaust’ material has proved to be a useful supplement in a number of other Soviet propaganda efforts, including the Nuremberg ‘trials’ and the obliterating by contrast of the awareness of many crimes of the Soviet Union against other nations, such as the Katyn massacres."66
UN Russian Federation representative Vitaly Churkin hinted that this is what is behind Russia’s support of the recent United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial": "[M]ember States were bound to include in that condemnation attempts to revise the history of the Second World War and the merits of those who took up arms to fight the Nazis. Any attempt to make heroic the henchmen of fascism must be rejected."67
Non-Jewish American and British power elites also have a vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. As historian Jeffrey Herf recently revealed in his study, The Jewish Enemy, the Holocaust ideology paints the American and British in a good and ethical light, and thus "justifies" their entire war effort against Germany.
As Herf makes clear, one of the important characteristics of mass propaganda is that it appeals to stark contrasts between good and evil. The Holocaust doctrine fills the bill perfectly. He wrote: "Reports of the Final Solution [the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews during WWII] underscored the stark moral dichotomy between Nazi Germany and its allies, on the one hand, and the United Nations [Americans, British, etc.,] on the other. They reinforced the Allies’ conviction that this was a war between freedom and tyranny, good and evil, civilization and barbarism."68
In a formal declaration reflecting the official view of the United States government, it was stated: "The 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany by the U.S. and its allies finally put a stop to dictator Adolph Hitler’s campaign of genocide."69
In a word, take away the Holocaust ideology and one important "justification" of the American and British war effort against Germany is consigned to the dustbin of history. Americans and Britons will start asking uncomfortable questions, such as: why did we go to war with Germany? Maybe we should not have gone to war with Germany, and maybe it was a huge error to be allied with the murderous Stalinist regime?
VIII. The Holocaust Ideology and Israel
The greatest beneficiary of the Holocaust ideology is undoubtedly the state of Israel and the power elites that ardently support political Zionism. As was revealed in the February 4, 2005 issue of The Jerusalem Post, the Holocaust doctrine forms the ideological foundation of Israel: "The tragedy of the Holocaust was a major impetus in the reestablishment of the Jewish people’s home, in its ancient land, noted [Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan] Shalom in [a speech to the United Nations]."70
In May of 2003, expressing a cornerstone of American foreign policy, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot that the "security of Israel is the key to the security of the world."71
If the security of Israel is the key to the security of the world, and since the Holocaust ideology is upholding Israel, then it follows that by upholding the Holocaust ideology you are upholding the security of the world. By discrediting the Holocaust ideology, you are threatening the security of the world—so thinks the pro-Zionist wing of the American National Security establishment. This is most certainly one reason why the US government put forth a formal declaration condemning Holocaust revisionism.72
At the date of this writing, the US and/or Israel are on the verge of carrying out a military strike against Iran. Here is how the Forward, the US’s most important Jewish newspaper, described the situation: "The looming war against Iran is a different story. This time, Jerusalem’s role is not fantasy. Israel’s sense of alarm has been at the center of the story from the get-go. Both the Washington Post and the New Yorker reported this week that Israeli strategists and intelligence experts were playing a serious role in building support for war. President Bush himself said in Cleveland last month that Israel’s safety was a central concern, if not the main one, in assessing the Iranian threat."73
If there is a military strike against Iran, one can predict that the Holocaust ideology will be used to "justify" it. After all, the US and Israel have to prevent "another Holocaust."
IX. The Holocaust Ideology and Marxist Theory
What historian Jeffrey Herf reveals in his study is no surprise. The Holocaust ideology "justifies" and "legitimizes" the massive restitution payments that go to Israel from Germany.
"From 1953 to 1965," Herf points out, "…the Federal Republic delivered to the state of Israel goods such as ships, machine tools, trains, autos, medical equipment, and telephone technology that were crucial for the construction of infrastructure. The West German deliveries amounted to between 10 and 15 percent of annual Israeli imports."74
What is interesting here is that this financial relationship between Germany and Israel serves as an example of the Marxist theory of economic exploitation.
Political philosopher Roger Scruton explains the function of "ideology" in Marxist theories: "[I]deology’ denotes any set of ideas and values which has the social function of consolidating a particular economic order, and which is explained by that fact alone, and not by its inherent truth or reasonableness…Ideology wins support for class rule, by persuading oppressed classes to accept the description of reality which render their subordination ‘natural.’ It therefore has three principal functions: to legitimate, to mystify, and to console."75
The contradictions, absurdities, and outright falsities in the Holocaust ideology are legion.76 The promotion of the Holocaust ideology in Germany is not be explained because of its inherent truth or reasonableness. Rather, its dominance is largely explained by the fact that it serves to "justify" and "legitimate" the exploitative economic relationship, imposed upon a prostrate Germany by the victorious Allies, between the Israeli and German people. The Holocaust ideology "persuades" the German masses that their financial subordination to Israel is "wholly morally correct and natural."
Yet, the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical status quo that it "justifies" contain with it the seeds of its own destruction. The more the German national identity is assaulted with Holocaust falsehoods, the more the German people are financially exploited by this, so to will more and more Germans come to reject the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical order that is associated with it.
If the current German rulers are truly interesting in building a stable democratic society, they would allow freedom of debate on the Holocaust issue, and attempt to get at the whole truth. Basing political systems upon demonstrable falsehoods that degrade and exploit the German people makes for a very politically unstable and volatile situation.77
X. The Holocaust Ideology and Jewish Identity
The Holocaust doctrine is part and parcel of the entire ideological package that forms Jewish identity, and Holocaust revisionism is perceived as a grave threat to this identity.
Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt perceives Holocaust revisionism as an evil assault upon the Jewish self-image and identity. In a frank and honest discussion, he admitted that when he read Holocaust revisionist literature, he "had come face to face with a dangerous personal abyss." His implicit conclusion is that this is one of the main reasons why Holocaust revisionism should be attacked and destroyed.78
Professor van Pelt then quotes Jewish writer Erika Apfelbaum as to why Holocaust revisionism is "so evil" and why it should be attacked and refuted. She stated: "Current Jewish history is deeply rooted in Auschwitz as the general symbol of the destruction of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. For someone whose past is rooted in Auschwitz, the experience of reading through the revisionists’ tortured logic and documentation is similar to the psychologically disorienting experience of sensory deprivation experiments or solitary confinement in prison, where one loses touch with reality. The insidious effect of reading this [Holocaust revisionist] literature is to lose one’s identity as a survivor and, more generally, as a Jew. Therefore, the revisionist allegations serve to dispossess the Jews from their history and in doing so, in seeking to destroy a people’s history, a symbolic genocide replaces a physical one."79
Eventually, the world Jewish community is going to have to face up to the lies and exaggerations in the Holocaust story, and rebuild their religious/ethnic identity on something other than Holocaust falsehoods. This will be a major challenge for Jews in the future.
XI. Closing Statement: What is to be done?
The Holocaust ideology plays an enormous political, social and economic role in world affairs. It is as if the whole emotional, intellectual, and institutional set-up of the post World War II world has been built around it. It serves as an ideological "justification" for the sociopolitical arrangements in many parts of the world today. Despite the fact that it is a demonstrably weak and flimsy ideology, it has amazing resiliency. The reason for this is plain to see. There are powerful Jewish and non-Jewish interests behind it.
One of the best demonstrations of the Holocaust doctrine’s weakness is the fact that it is surrounded with strictly enforced taboos, prison sentences, and threats of career destruction to protect it from rational criticism. This alone should tell people how weak and flimsy it really is. A belief that rests on good reason and solid evidence does not need legal restrictions and extra-legal, underhanded tactics to protect it.
The world sociopolitical status quo that the Holocaust ideology "justifies" and "legitimizes" is threatened with collapse. In this world of endless war and violence, it is the duty of the intellectuals and scholars to attempt to come up with peaceful resolutions to the problems humanity faces. It is now up to the powerful Jewish and non-Jewish interests that are behind the Holocaust ideology to engage its opponents, the revisionists, in free and democratic debate so we may get at the truth about the fate of the Jews during World War II. In this way, we can help to build a more rational and humane world order.
Footnotes
1. "Iran Summit Questions Holocaust," Investor’s Business Daily, 12 December 2006, p. A1.
2. "Olmert asks pope to call on Christians to protest Holocaust denial," Yahoo! News, 13 December 2006.
3. Christine Hauser, "Leaders condemn talks against Holocaust," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 13 December 2006, p. A 9.
4. Ibid.
5. For these and other quotes from world leaders, see the ADL’s web site, "Iran Hosts Anti-Semitic Hatefest in Tehran: Responses from World Leaders." Online: http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/iran_holocaust_conference.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_4
6. For example, see Paul Grubach, "Reflections in the Aftermath of the Iran Holocaust Conference: Is the Holocaust an Indisputable Fact as World Leaders Say?" Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgiran.html
7. Michael Slackman, Mona el-Naggar, Nazila Fathi, "Deep Roots of Denial for Iran’s True Believer," The New York Times, 14 December 2006, p. A 3.
8. Nazila Fathi, "Israel Fading, Iran’s Leader Tells Deniers of Holocaust," The New York Times, 13 December 2006, p. A 10.
9. Leon Poliakov, The Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe (Holocaust Library, 1979), p.108.
10. The Sault Star. (Canada), "Scientific evidence of Holocaust missing," January 18, 1985, p.A11; See Hilberg’s testimony in Barbara Kulaszka, ed., Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian "False News" Trial of Ernst Zundel—1988 (Samisdat, 1992), p. 39. Online: http://zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrd09hilberg.html Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm
11. Pressac, p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm
12. Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 5.
13. Ibid, pp. 145, 159.
14. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993), pp. 101, 188.
15. Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz: The Dangers of Distortion," Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending September 30, 1989, p.7; Peter Steinfels, "Auschwitz Revisionism: An Israeli Scholar’s Case," New York Times, November 12, 1989. Robert Jan van Pelt makes a similar point, p. 109.
16. For example, see Ernst Gauss, ed., Dissecting the Holocaust: The Growing Critique of "Truth" and "Memory" (Theses and Dissertations Press, 2000).
17. "The Conclave of Hate," Forward, December 2006, p. A 12.
18. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 33.
19. Nazila Fathi, "Iran Invites Scholars to Assess Holocaust as History or Fiction," The New York Times, 6 December 2006, p. A. 5.
20. Nazila Fathi, "Iran Opens Conference on Holocaust," The New York Times, 12 December 2006, p. A 3.
21. Michael Collins Piper, "What Really Happened in Iran…" Online: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/iranholocaustconf.php
22. Ibid.
23. Online: http://www.davidduke.com/general/live-from-america-and-around-the-worldlisten-to-todays-or-an-earlier-webcast-of-david-duke-live-internet-radio-broadcast-live-every-weekday-sunday-e-mail-or-post-your-questions-to-rep-duke_1333.html#more-1333 Scroll down to David Duke’s Monday, December 11, 2006 broadcast, "Duke Speaks at Holocaust Conference."
24. Nazila Fathi, "Israel Fading, Iran’s Leader Tells Deniers of Holocaust," The New York Times, 13 December 2006, p. A 10.
25. Piper.
26. Robert Faurisson, "The Victories of Revisionism." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vprfvict.html Frederick Toben, "The ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ in Time & Space, not Memory." Online: http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/contents.htm
27. "Rogues and Fools," The New York Times, 15 December 2006, p. A 40.
28. Online: http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html For a short discussion of this with appropriate documentation and links to Juan Coles’s writings, see Online: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History_07/Persia_220307.html
29. Christine Hauser, "Leaders condemn talks against Holocaust," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 13 December 2006, p. A 9.
30. For example, the Anti-Defamation League promotes this falsehood. See "Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his Own Words." Online: http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/ahmadinejad_words.htm
31. Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p.299.
32. "President reiterates that Holocaust is ‘myth.’ Reuters News release, 14 December 2005.
33. Hugh J. Schonfeld, The Passover Plot: New Light on the Life and Death of Jesus (Bantam, 1967).
34. According to the blurbs on the book’s cover, it was discussed in Publishers’ Weekly, Saturday Review, The Queen Magazine, Chicago Tribune, King Features Syndicate, and The Christian Herald.
35. John M. Allegro, The Sacred Cross and the Mushroom: A Study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East (Bantam, 1971).
36. Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it? (University of California Press, 2000).
37. Dion Nissenbaum, "Experts debunk claims in Jesus Documentary," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 27 February 2007, p.A 4.
38. Elaine Sciolino, "Teacher in Hiding After Attack on Islam Stirs Threats," The New York Times, 30 September 2006, p. A 3.
39. Ibid.
40. "French president orders probe into revisionist comments," European Jewish Press, 25 December 2006. Online: http://www.ejpress.org/article/12289
41. Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (Harper & Row, 1982), p. 461.
42. Lipstadt, p.1.
43. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews: Student Edition (Holmes & Meir, 1985), p. 5.
44. Lipstadt, passim.
45. Quoted in Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on Denial of the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 1992), p. xiv.
46. Marc Perelman, "Iran Proposal for Shoah Rebuffed by Europeans," Forward, 24 February 2006, p.7. "Drawing the Line on Iran, " Forward, 24 February 2006, p. 10.
47. Ibid.
48. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 1967 ed., s.v. "Karl Raimund Popper," by Anthony Quinton.
49. Kevin MacDonald, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples (Writers Club Press, 2002), p.364.
50. Ibid, p. 363.
51. See Mark Weber, "Freedom for Europe’s Prisoners of Conscience!: Irving, Zundel, Rudolf Still in Prison." Online: http://www.ihr.org/news/061112_prisoners_of_conscience.shtml
52. Nuremberg document 008-USSR; IMT "blue series," Vol. 39, pp. 24-25. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 61-62; Lipstadt, p.188, footnote.
53. See photograph at http://zundelsite.org/english/antiprop/plaques/pope.jpg Also, see photograph at Paul Grubach, "The Christian Religion and the Iran Holocaust Conference: An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgpope.html
54. Gutman and Berenbaum. Lipstadt, p. 188, footnote.
55. See footnote 15.
56. Frederick Toben, "The ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ in Time & Space, not Memory." Online: http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/contents.htm
57. Scruton, p. 311.
58. John Vinocur, "Pope Prays at Auschwitz: ‘Only Peace!,’" The New York Times, 8 June 1979, p.A1.
59. Ibid.
60. van Pelt, p.14.
61. Ibid, p.109.
62. Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p.273.
63. Charles Weber, "Cui Bono? An American veteran’s views on non-Jewish toleration and propagation of the Extermination thesis," The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1982, vol 3, no 2, p.105. Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p105_Weber.html
64. General Assembly, GA/10569, 26 January 2007, "General Assembly Adopts Resolution Condemning Any Denial of Holocaust: United States Representative Says to Deny Events of Holocaust Tantamount to Approval of Genocide in All its Forms." Online: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/ga10569.doc.htm
65. Lipstadt, p.213.
66. Weber.
67. footnote 64.
68. Herf, p.176.
69. VOA News, Editorials Reflecting the Views of the United States Government, "Holocaust Conference in Iran," 22 December 2006. Online: http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-12-22-voa5.cfm
70. Liat Collins, "From the Ashes," The International Jerusalem Post, 4 February 2005, p.4.
71. Avraham Shmuel Lewin, "Rice: Israel’s Security is Key to Security of Rest of World," jewishpress.com, 14 May 2003. Online: http: //www.jewishpress.com/news_article_print.asp?article=2380
72. Footnote 69.
73. "The Risks of War," Forward, 14 April 2006, p.10.
74. Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997), p.288.
75. Scruton, p.213.
76. See Gauss.
77. For a discussion of this, see Paul Grubach, "Should Germany and Austria Tolerate Holocaust Revisionism?: Reflections on the Upcoming Irving, Zundel and Rudolf Trials." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgtolerate.html
78. van Pelt, p.70.
79. Ibid.
Final Reflections in the Wake of the Iran Holocaust Conference
By Paul Grubach
© 2007
I. The Specter
A specter is haunting Western Civilization. It is the specter of Holocaust revisionism. The power elites of Europe, the United States and beyond have entered into holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and US President, British and Canadian Prime Minister, French and Russian Foreign Ministers, German Chancellor and Justice Minister, international Zionism and the Western mass media. The list goes on and on.
In December of 2006, a watershed event took place in the history of Holocaust revisionism, the historical discipline that states there was no Nazi plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews, the "Nazi Gas Chambers" never existed, and the number of Jews killed during WWII is grossly exaggerated. On December 11 and 12, 2006, the Islamic Republic of Iran hosted an international conference during which different viewpoints about the Holocaust and the issues that surround it were presented.
One of the very few, evenhanded descriptions of the conference was put forth by an unlikely source, the influential business and finance publication, Investor’s Business Daily. "The avowed enemy of Israel," they rightly pointed out, "hosted a two-day conference for Holocaust skeptics, at which attendees expressed doubts that the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews during World War II."1 It is important to add there were speakers and attendees that accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust. This was the first time in history, however, that a sovereign government hosted a conference in which Holocaust revisionist viewpoints were welcomed.
In general, world reaction was both swift and highly negative. Leaders in Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, Ottawa, Moscow and numerous other capitols put forth harshly worded condemnations. A Dec. 13, 2006 Yahoo news missive stated: "Israel spearheaded the international outcry over the meeting."2 Indeed, the ensuing international reaction unfolded like the outcome of a secret plan formulated in the inner sanctums of the Israeli Knesset.
According to news sources, the highest echelon of the Catholic Church, the Vatican, called "the Holocaust an ‘immense tragedy’ for all humanity, in a statement admitting of no doubt that the mass murder took place."3 The White House said in a press statement on Dec. 11 that the Holocaust gathering in Iran is an "affront to the entire civilized world, as well as the traditional Iranian values of tolerance and mutual respect."4
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair called the Iranian conference "shocking beyond belief." German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage: "I would like to make clear that we reject with all our strength the conference taking place in Iran about the supposed nonexistence of the Holocaust." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper alleged that "the conference hosted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the sole purpose of denying the Holocaust is an offence to all Canadians." French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy complained that "The conference represents a resurgence of ‘revisionist’ theories which are quite simply not acceptable." The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a declaration, saying that "Russia shares the determination of the UN general assembly not to allow the denial of the Holocaust."5
Here, the international Holocaust lobby made a mass "appeal to authority." They prodded numerous governments to make these public condemnations because they know full well that large numbers of people will blindly believe the claim—"The Holocaust happened"--if people in positions of authority say it is "true," irregardless of how flimsy and weak the evidence for the Holocaust doctrine may be. As a matter of fact, it is a very easy task to show how questionable the traditional view of the Holocaust really is.6
II. The Weakness of the Holocaust Doctrine
Expressing the etched-in-stone official truth, the New York Times declared: "The two day-meeting included no attempt to come to terms with the nature of the well-documented Nazi slaughter, offering only a platform to those pursuing the fantasy that it never happened."7
This is false on two counts. First, there were speakers who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust, and disputed the revisionist viewpoint. For example, a December 13, 2006, article in their own newspaper (!) pointed out that an Iranian scholar insisted that certain aspects of the Holocaust are well documented.8
Second, it is very easy to show that the alleged Holocaust is not well-documented. To put it mildly, it is based upon highly questionable speculations. Consider just a very small sample of the evidence a revisionist could muster. These are not even the best examples, just the simplest to explain in a short amount of space.
Holocaust historian Leon Poliakov pointed out decades ago that there are no documents to prove that the Nazis ever had any plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe: "[T]he campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness. Inferences, psychological considerations, and third- or fourth-hand reports enable us to reconstruct its development with considerable accuracy. Certain details, however, must remain forever unknown. The three or four people chiefly involved in the actual drawing up of the plan for total extermination are dead and no documents have survived; perhaps none ever existed."9
In short, the "evidence" that "proves" the existence of an alleged Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is simply the guesswork of Holocaust historians. Hard documentary proof is missing.
One of the foremost Holocaust historians, Raul Hilberg, admitted that scientific proof for the existence of the "Hitler gas chambers" is missing. No authentic and genuine autopsy report exists to show that Jews were killed with poison gas. No one has ever produced any photographs of Jews being gassed.10
As the late Jean-Claude Pressac (widely considered to be an authority on the alleged Auschwitz gas chambers) was forced to admit, in the blueprints, construction documents and work orders that trace the construction and subsequent use of the buildings that allegedly housed the "Auschwitz gas chambers," there is no explicit reference to the use of gas chambers or Zyklon B for homicidal purposes.11
Holocaust historian Robert Jan van Pelt conceded that the "evidence" for the mass killings of Jews at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec—where allegedly millions were murdered--is sparse at best. In reference to these three camps, he wrote: "There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that can compare to that given by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Hoss, no significant remains, and few archival sources."12
Dr. van Pelt also admits that the wartime claims that Jews were electrocuted en masse in "electrocution chambers" at Belzec and on "electric conveyor belts" at Auschwitz are also falsehoods.13 If the evidence that "proves" that Jews were electrocuted en masse is bogus, isn’t it also possible that the "evidence" that "proves" that Jews were murdered in "gas chambers" is also bogus, or at least very suspect?
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt conceded that the story that the Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses is apparently another war time falsehood. She also pointed to evidence that leads one to believe that the eyewitness testimony that forms most of the "proof" of the traditional view of the Holocaust is unreliable.14
Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer admitted that the formerly "etched-in-stone-fact" that four million souls were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz was a deliberate myth created to serve an ulterior political agenda. This shows that conspiracy (premeditated distortions introduced for political ends) was involved in the shaping of the Holocaust doctrine.15
The list of highly questionable claims, falsehoods, contradictions, and absurdities in the traditional Holocaust doctrine is seemingly endless.16
III. Media Responses
Condemnations of the conference coming from mainstream media sources in the West were similar to government condemnations. The editorial that appeared in Forward, perhaps the US’s most important Jewish newspaper, was typical. Entitled "The Conclave of Hate," it stated; "[T]he Iranian regime may have done the world a favor when it decided to host this week’s international gathering of Holocaust deniers. By rolling out the red carpet for the ugliest gathering in recent memory of frauds, nutballs, white racists and unreconstructed Nazis from every dark corner of the world, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his bully boys have made plainer than ever the sort of people they are. Their bizarre festival of hate has driven home to the world community, in a way that nothing else could do, just who it is that sits in Tehran and schemes to build a nuclear bomb."17
The pattern of Western news accounts and editorials about the conference were remarkably similar. They simply condemned those who attended with derogatory epithets. They stated that the traditional view of the Holocaust is an indisputable fact. They refused to fairly examine the alternative viewpoint, the case for Holocaust revisionism. And finally, they promoted outright lies about the conference. These are stock-in-trade tactics as to how mainstream Western news sources deal with Holocaust revisionism, and as we shall see, are comparable to the propaganda techniques used by totalitarian regimes to control the thinking of the masses. Only on rare occasions were there fair and honest reports and blurbs about the Iranian meeting.
IV. Mass Propaganda and the Holocaust Ideology
The Jewish owned New York Times is the most important newspaper in the United States, and most certainly is among the world’s most respected news sources. For the United States at least, it is "the paper of record," and to a large extent, all news in the nation, particularly foreign, is what the Times calls news. The Times not only reflects and mirrors what many power elites are thinking, they create said thinking. With few exceptions, how the Times dealt with the Iran Holocaust conference illustrates how the mainstream Western media in general dealt with the conference.
In his recently published book, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust, historian Jeffrey Herf brought attention to the mass propaganda techniques and the "basic laws" of mass influence that were advocated by certain German National Socialists. They are: "intellectual simplification, limitation to a few key points, repetition of those points, focus on one subjective standpoint to the exclusion of others, and appeal to the emotions and to stark contrasts between good and bad or truth and lies, rather than to nuances or shades of gray."18
With these "basic laws of mass propaganda" in mind, let us examine a good portion of what the Times published about the Iran Holocaust conference.
The first article, before the conference began, was somewhat balanced and fair. It was entitled "Iran Invites Scholars to Assess Holocaust as History or Fiction." Here are some excerpts: "[T]he conference to be held in Tehran…would include more than 60 scholars from 30 countries and would examine a range of issues, including whether the gas chambers were actually used."19 The article further points out that Iran’s president Ahmadinejad stated on several occasions the Holocaust is exaggerated or it is an outright myth, and it has been used as a propaganda tool to promote Israel’s interests.
The Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi was quoted as saying the conference would "provide the opportunity for scholars from both sides to give their papers in freedom and without preconceived ideas." Apparently, here is where objective reporting on the conference ends. The ensuing articles I have examined are, for the most part, a mirror image of the mass propaganda techniques of a controlled media.
The news report on December 12 begins with these words: "Iran held a gathering that included Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars and white supremacists from around the world on Monday under the guise of a conference to ‘debate’ the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews."20
This is grossly inaccurate. They failed to point out, for example, that the conference attendees included leftist scholars, like France’s Serge Thion, a respected sociologist. Nor did they note that long-time American free speech advocate, Bradley Smith, was a speaker. Smith’s wife is of Mexican descent, and his ex was Jewish—hardly the "right stuff" for the "white supremacist" mold.
Furthermore, author, newspaper correspondent, and radio talk show host Michael Collins Piper, who was present at the conference, pointed out that there were a considerable number of non-European intellectuals present, thus falsifying the Times’s insinuation that it was a "gathering of white supremacists." He wrote: "[T]he conference was a diverse and eclectic gathering which not only featured a group of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish rabbis but also included Black speakers from the African continent, as well as Palestinian Muslim attendees and European academics who insisted the Holocaust, as it is popularly remembered, did happen, and that it was a major tragedy in which many millions of Jews were deliberately exterminated."21
Elsewhere Piper wrote that many speakers were "people of color from Africa and Asia and throughout the Middle East. The Iran conference was hardly the so-called ‘white supremacist’ or ‘racist’ conclave that the American media falsely portrayed."22
While noting that former Ku Klux Klan leader Dr. David Duke attended, they made a demonstrably false claim about his speech. They charged that Duke said "the gas chambers in which millions perished actually did not exist." This is blatantly false, and the reader is encouraged to listen to or read Duke’s speech in total. Nowhere does he say that the "gas chambers" did or did not exist. He simply argued for free enquiry on this issue.23
Let us move onto the Dec. 13 article. It states: "Despite promises of open-mindedness, when one participant talked about the scholarship confirming the Holocaust, his views were quickly dismissed. That speaker, an Iranian historian, Gholamreza Vatandoust, from Shiraz University, said, ‘Some facts about the Holocaust have been documented.’ But he was criticized immediately by Robert Faurisson, a French academic, who said he had never found documents to support the Holocaust."24
The Dec. 13 article continues: "One of the few ultra-Orthodox rabbis at the conference, Moshe Ayre Friedman from Austria, said, ‘I am not a denier of the Holocaust, but I think it is legitimate to cast doubt on some statistics.’"
What this suggests is that the Conference was not a "gathering of Holocaust deniers and white supremacists," as was stated at the beginning of the article. There were indeed attendees who challenged the revisionist view of the Holocaust, and there were also Jewish people present who are not "white supremacists."
As previously stated, attendee Michael Collins Piper pointed out that there were quite a few speakers who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust. In his own words: "Many [speakers] took the position that the basic story of the Holocaust, as it has been told in the media, was essentially what happened, but that whatever happened—to whatever degree—did not justify Israel’s ongoing treatment of the Palestinian people."25
Here is the most important observation. The Times made no attempt in any of their articles to list the arguments and evidence of the Holocaust revisionists, and then objectively examine them. Specifically, they made no attempt to fairly examine the arguments and evidence in the presentations of Dr. Robert Faurisson and Dr. Frederick Toben.26
This is a mass propaganda tactic of a totalitarian regime. They focused on one subjective viewpoint, their traditional view of the Holocaust, and excluded the revisionist arguments and evidence. As Jeffrey Herf pointed out, this was a major feature of National Socialist mass propaganda: the focus on one subjective viewpoint and the exclusion of others.
Let us now move on to the December 15, 2006, editorial. It begins: "This week’s conference in Iran of Holocaust deniers and racists was, predictably, a circus of Holocaust denial and racism argued by discredited scholars and even the former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke."27
This is proven wrong by their own articles. In the December 13 article we learned that there were people present who accepted the traditional view of the Holocaust and challenged the revisionist view, and that there were Jewish rabbis present. Furthermore, as attendee Michael Collins Piper pointed out, there were scholars and intellectuals present from Asia and Africa, thus falsifying their insinuation that it was conference of " white racists."
The editorial continues: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran apparently believes his claims that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis is a myth ginned up to justify the creation of the state of Israel. This is frightening enough. Couple that with his calls to wipe Israel off the map…"
They say that it is "frightening" if someone does not believe that the Nazis killed six million Jews. Yet, according to their morality, it is not "frightening" for them to sympathetically review a book that claims a belief in God and religion is a dangerous illusion. In the October 22, 2006, issue of their New York Times Book Review, there was a long and calm discussion of the anti-Christian/anti-Muslim, atheistic tome of scientist Richard Dawkins.
Why is it "frightening" to believe that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis is a myth, yet it is not frightening to argue that God and all religion are one big delusion? What the Times choose to label as a "frightening belief" tell us more about their ulterior Jewish-Zionist double standard than about reality.
Furthermore, it is totally false that Ahmandinejad called for "Israel to be wiped off of the map." According to University of Michigan Professor and Middle East scholar, Juan Cole, what he did say is this: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."28
Ahmadinejad further clarified what he meant at the close of the conference: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom." He also called for elections among "Jews, Christians, and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."29
President Ahmadinejad proposed that the Zionist state be replaced by a democratic state where the different ethnic groups would function as social and political equals. This is what he meant when he said that Israel would disappear as the Soviet Union disappeared. Yet, the distortion that he said that "Israel should be wiped off the map," thus implying that the Israeli people should be destroyed, is a lie that was repeated over and over again by mainstream media sources and influential groups.30
As Professor Arthur Butz noted, one of the major implications of his revisionist classic, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, is that "the media in the western democracies are exposed as constituting a lie machine of vaster extent than even many of the more independent minded have perceived."31 The manner in which the New York Times covered the Iran Holocaust conference seems to confirm this viewpoint.
V. God, Religion, Science, and the Holocaust Ideology
Future historians will find it utterly ironic that the reactions to the conference on the part of Western governments and mainstream media sources actually vindicated the now famous observation of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, the very man and viewpoints who these power elites want to ostracize, demonize and condemn.
In reference to political Zionism and certain Western governments, President Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying: "They have fabricated a legend under the name of Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves. If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."32
This was a statement "heard around the world." It sometimes takes a critic outside of a particular culture to bring to the world’s attention the hypocrisy and cant that is corrupting said culture. By making the preceding statement, President Ahmadinejad has done such a service to both Western society and the world at large, for he has exposed the hypocrisy and double standard that plagues Western society—a society that claims it supports freedom of speech and has no state enforced religions.
In the late 1960s, Jewish intellectual Hugh Schonfeld published a book entitled The Passover Plot, its thesis being that Christianity is one big, bald faced lie. According to Schonfeld, Jesus Christ planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. He arranged to be drugged on the cross, simulating death so that he could later be safely removed and thus bear out the Messianic prophesies. Schonfeld was never censored by publishers, the mass media or publicly condemned by Western governments, nor was he deported from his home in London to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings.33
His book was published by a respected, United States mainstream publisher (Bantam Books) and sympathetically reviewed and discussed in respected mainstream US media outlets.34
In the early 1970s, University of Manchester intellectual John Allegro published his The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. The book’s thesis is that Christianity is one big fraud, and the concept of the Christian God is a drug-induced hallucination. The man we know as Jesus Christ was the illusory personification of a fertility cult based on the use of a psychedelic drug. Allegro’s book was published by respected mainstream publishers in the United States (Doubleday, Bantam), and discussed in respected US media outlets.35 Once again, Allegro was never publicly condemned by Western governments, censored by mainstream publishers, and then deported to a prison cell for his anti-Christian writings.
Consider the case of Dr. Michael Shermer, a boring and intellectually mediocre atheist that bolstered his career by promoting the Holocaust ideology.36 Shermer, founder of Skeptics Society, has a long track record of attacking religion and the concept of God. Shermer suffers no persecution or harassment. Quite the contrary! He is a recognized figure in academic circles and is also a media celebrity.
Just recently, the renowned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, had his atheistic, very anti-religious book, The God Delusion, published by the respected and mainstream publishing houses, Houghton Mifflin and Bantam Press. Dawkins was given time to present his atheistic viewpoints to millions of listeners in his British Broadcasting Corporation documentary. His arguments were given serious consideration in the October 22, 2006, New York Times Book Review and Britian’s September 23, 2006, Guardian Unlimited . The book is openly promoted and sold at large book dealers throughout the US and Great Britain. Western government and mass media reaction were similar. Western governments were silent, and mainstream media sources promoted it.
In March of 2007, the popular Discovery Channel featured a documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which attacked the fundamental tenets of the Christian religion. It claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, fathered a child, and never rose from the dead. That this is offensive to millions of Christians goes without saying.37
The case of French high school philosophy teacher and author, Robert Redeker, illustrates the hypocrisy and double standard most clearly. In a newspaper commentary in the French newspaper, Le Figaro, he made a scathing attack upon the Prophet Mohammed and the Islamic religion. He wrote that Mohammed was a "a merciless warlord and looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and polygamist," and he labeled the Koran "a book of incredible violence." After receiving death threats, including one from an online Islamic forum, he went into hiding under police protection.38
The French government came to the defense of Mr. Redeker. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called the threats "unacceptable." He then added this most blatant lie: "We are in a democracy. Everyone has the right to express his views freely, while respecting others, of course."39
That this is an outrageous lie is demonstrated by the case the Holocaust revisionist scholar, Dr. Robert Faurisson. According to the European Jewish Press, he "was removed from his university chair on the basis of his [Holocaust revisionist] views under the Gayssot Act, a French statute passed in 1990 that prohibits Holocaust denial." Furthermore, French President Jacques Chirac ordered a probe into the revisionist comments made by the intrepid revisionist scholar at the Iranian Holocaust conference, with the possibility being that the French government could bring new charges against him for "Holocaust denial." He was already given a three-month suspended jail term for Holocaust revisionist remarks he made on Iranian television in October 2006.40
So let’s get things perfectly straight. The French government defends a man who insults the Islamic religion, despite the fact that his statements are offensive to millions of Muslims. Indeed, they defended his right to freedom of speech in a well publicized statement and offer him police protection as well. Yet, this same French government allows a French professor to be removed from his university chair, orders probes into his comments, and gives him suspended jail sentences because of his Holocaust revisionist beliefs. This clearly falsifies Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin hypocritical claim that France is "democracy where everyone has the right to express his views freely, while respecting others…" One has the right to insult and attack the Islamic religion, but Holocaust revisionists are not allowed to freely express their viewpoints.
The pattern is the same in all of these cases. Western governments and mass media outlets did not censor and openly condemn these attacks upon God and religion, despite the fact that they are offensive to millions of Christians and Muslims. The mass media openly promoted these publications, and Western governments were silent. Additionally, in the case of the attack upon Islam in France by Robert Redeker, the government even offered support.
Yet, when President Ahmadinejad convened a conference that questioned the veracity of the Holocaust doctrine, Western governments and media giants joined in chorus to loudly and vehemently condemn him. In the Iranian leader’s own words: "If someone in their country denies God, nobody says anything. But if somebody rejects the Massacre of the Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism start to scream." And scream they did! This in itself vindicated the claim of President Ahmadinejad that Western power elites have raised the Holocaust ideology above God and religion.
A "theocracy" is a form of government in which society’s rulers claim their authority to rule has been given to them directly by a Deity.41 Under a theocratic form of government, the concept of God and religion is given the status of "not-criticizable" or "not-disprovable." The concept of God is to be accepted without question—period. Anyone who does not accept the existence of God, or attempts to disprove God’s existence, is, by definition, "evil and immoral," and is subject to severe persecution. In theocratic societies, the existence of God is not a matter of debate.
A similar statement could be made for the Holocaust ideology in current Western society; it is not a matter of dispute. Expressing a dictum that stands firm in the Western media and academia, Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt has authoritatively declared: "The existence of the Holocaust [is] not a matter of debate."42
Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg claimed that in fourth century Europe "the Christian religion was not one of many religions, but the true religion, the only one. Those who were not in its fold were either ignorant or in error."43 In our society, the Holocaust doctrine is not one of many interpretations, but the true interpretation, the only one. Those who are not in its fold are, by definition, ignorant and evil Nazis, anti-Semites, and deluded fanatics.44
Throughout the United States and much of Europe, the Holocaust ideology has attained the status that the concept of God has in theocratic societies. It is to be accepted without question, a priori. And anyone who questions it or rejects it risks being censored, severely persecuted or imprisoned.
In early 1979, in France’s most respected newspaper, Le Monde, 34 historians issued a manifesto in support of the Holocaust ideology. The concluding paragraph asserts that mass gassings of Jews did take place and that no one can deny their existence without committing an outrage on the truth: "The question of how technically such a mass murder was possible should not be raised. It was technically possible because it occurred. This is the necessary starting point for all historical investigations of the subject. It has fallen to us to recall that point with due simplicity: there is not nor can there be a debate over the existence of the gas chambers."45
Once again, in a theocratic society, God’s existence is self-evident and must be accepted, a priori…period! In our society, the existence of the "Nazi gas chambers" is "self-evident" and must be accepted, a priori.
Not only has the Holocaust doctrine been raised above God and religion, it has also been raised above science itself, for it can no longer be objectively examined by critics. Iran offered to send a team of experts to Poland to examine the evidence for the alleged Holocaust.46 The plan was immediately rejected by Polish officials. "Under no circumstances should we permit this," insisted Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Miller. "This is beyond all imaginable norms that such a thing is discussed," he added.47
Once again, this behavior lends even more credence to Ahmadinejad’s claims. He stated: "They have fabricated a legend under the name of the Massacre of the Jews."
By refusing to allow the Iranians to come and evaluate the evidence, Poland is lending credence to his claim that at least some of the evidence for the Holocaust is indeed fabricated, and Western governments are afraid that he will expose this to the world. But just as importantly, by refusing skeptics the right to question the evidence, the Holocaust doctrine has been placed beyond the pale of scientific analysis.
Karl Popper, a prominent philosopher of science, proposed that a statement (a theory, a conjecture) has the status of belonging to the empirical sciences if, and only if, it is potentially falsifiable.48 If the Holocaust cannot be questioned nor debated and its evidence cannot be evaluated by skeptics, and it must be blindly accepted as a "fact," then it is not falsifiable. If it is not falsifiable, then it is not a scientific theory. By making the Holocaust doctrine non-falsifiable, Western power elites have made it into a self-perpetuating, quasi-religious [WHOLLY RELIGIOUS] dogma.
The evolutionary psychologist, Professor Kevin MacDonald, points out that certain 20th-century intellectual movements dominated by Jews have developed a distinct flavor of authoritarianism. For example, the Psychoanalytic Movement was founded by mostly Jews, and it remained "a highly authoritarian movement in which group boundaries are rigidly maintained and in which heretics are expelled."49
Historical Jewish culture has been characterized by being authoritarian and collectivist. Professor MacDonald explains: "The precedence of community control over individual behavior, a fundamental feature of a collectivist type of society, is a highly salient feature of mainstream Judaism…"50 Jewish groups have projected this cultural trait into the Holocaust doctrine. It is a highly authoritarian ideology that brooks no dissent and persecutes heretics. All throughout the so-called "free West" people can suffer severe persecution or even a prison term for simply questioning it.
Fred Leuchter, at one time the foremost expert in the United States on gas chamber technology, had his career destroyed and marriage ruined because he published a report that shows the so-called "Auschwitz gas chambers" never existed. German scientist Germar Rudolf and Revisionist activist Ernst Zundel are presently in German prisons for rejecting the Holocaust ideology. British historian David Irving spent thirteen months in an Austrian prison for allegedly violating "Holocaust denial laws." In numerous countries throughout Europe, one can end up in prison for years for rejecting the Holocaust ideology. Jewish groups were behind the creation and implementation of these oppressive laws.51
VI. The Holocaust as Sacred Myth
At the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allies alleged that the Germans exterminated four million people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Until 1990, a memorial plaque at Auschwitz read: 'Four Million People Suffered and Died Here at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers Between the Years 1940 and 1945.'"52 During a June 1979 visit to the camp, Pope John Paul II stood before this memorial and prayed for and blessed the four million victims.53
In July 1990, the Polish government's Auschwitz State Museum, along with Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center, conceded that the four million figure was a gross exaggeration, and references to it were accordingly removed from the Auschwitz monument. Israeli and Polish officials announced a tentative revised toll of at least 1.1 million dead, about 90 percent being Jews from almost every country in Europe.54
As previously noted, the claim that the Germans exterminated four million people at Auschwitz is now admitted to be a deliberate myth and a politically inspired falsehood.55
In his speech at the conference, Revisionist diplomat Dr. Frederick Toben rightly pointed out that, once again, John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, blessed the alleged 1.5 million victims, which shows that there is indeed a concerted effort to elevate the Holocaust ideology to the status of "sacred myth."56
In a political sense, here is how "myth" is defined: "Any false belief that is (a) of symbolic importance in the emotional life of the believer, (b) based in a need to believe rather than in rational conviction, (c) associated with stories that are accepted not as history (or not on historical evidence), but as illustrations or parables, (d) endowed with a ‘sacred’ quality, which it can confer on the social relations, institutions or political arrangements associated with it, so granting them an air of legitimacy."57
In regard to the politically inspired falsehood that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz, here is how the late Pope John Paul II proposed it is to be used. In the words of the New York Times: "His voice going hoarse on the sixth day of the visit to his native Poland, the Pope asked that all his listeners commit themselves to the care of human beings and the oppressed, in testimony for the four million—including two and a half million Jews—who died in the camps he could see from the raised altar platform."58
Notice how the false "four million murdered" figure fits the criteria for "myth." It is a demonstrably false belief that had taken on a symbolic importance in the emotional life of people. The Pope proposed that it should be a motivating force for social action. The four million figure was not based in rational analysis, but rather in a "need to believe" for an ulterior political reason. And finally, the four million falsehood was endowed by the Pope himself with a ‘sacred’ quality, which it can confer on the social relations, institutions or political arrangements associated with it, so granting them an air of legitimacy.
To the Time’s credit, they did point out how the Holocaust ideology, inclusive of the four million falsehood, granted an air of legitimacy to the political arrangements in the year of 1979: "[P]oland’s suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany is still viewed as a source of unity, and the country’s liberation by the Red Army is regarded as the imprint of the legitimacy of the country’s Marxist leadership."59
The "four million murdered at Auschwitz" figure is gone, and Poland’s Marxist leadership has been consigned to the dustbin of history. But the need to believe in the Auschwitz mythos survives. It has been "revised" to lend an air of legitimacy to contemporary sociopolitical interests.
Professor van Pelt revealed reasons why Poland has a vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. In 1947, the Polish government enacted a law that commemorated the martyrdom of Poland and other nations at the Auschwitz concentration camp.60 Elsewhere, he wrote: "As relations between the East and West deteriorated after the war, with the largest part of Germany becoming part of NATO and with that country refusing to recognize the legitimacy of postwar Polish annexation of the former German territories of East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia, the number of victims became a political issue. The communist rulers of Poland were unwilling to give an inch on their claims against Germany as long as the Bonn government did not recognize the territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of Poland, and therefore they continued to maintain, as a matter of policy, that 4 million people had been killed in Auschwitz."61
Whether or not the Polish position vis-à-vis the disputed territories is legitimate or not, Polish authorities still have an ulterior vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. Not only does it serve as a cornerstone of Polish nationalism, but it provides a "safeguard" against any future German demand that Poland give back the disputed territories to Germany. Imprisoned Holocaust revisionist scientist Germar Rudolf summed it up perfectly when he wrote; "Many Poles fear in their hearts that the post-war state of Poland stands and falls with Auschwitz."62
Surely, there are also non-Jewish interests and governments behind the promotion of the Holocaust ideology. The late revisionist historian, Charles Weber, stated it thusly: "As corrosive, divisive and destructive as the ‘Holocaust’ material and extermination thesis are, we must certainly not consider Jews exclusively responsible for their continued propagation."63
Consider the case of Russia. Here is the statement of the Russian representative to the United Nations in regard to the recent United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial: "[T]he Red Army had freed the Auschwitz death camp, one of the largest. The memory of the heroism of the Soviet soldiers and the many millions of victims in his country could never reconcile itself with those of ‘opportunistic political interest’ who sought to distort the significance of that history."64
Clearly, the Holocaust ideology casts the Russian people in the role of "heroic liberators." Any repudiation of the doctrine would very well shine the spotlight on the crimes, genocide and oppression of the Stalinist regime, with the end result being the demolition of a pillar of Russian patriotic ideology, and the world-wide realization that Stalinist Communism that came from Russia was a more oppressive and evil system than Nazism ever was. Even the bitter intellectual opponent of Holocaust revisionism, Deborah Lipstadt, admits that Stalin killed more people than Hitler ever did.65
Once again, Revisionist Charles Weber stated it thusly: "The ‘Holocaust’ material has proved to be a useful supplement in a number of other Soviet propaganda efforts, including the Nuremberg ‘trials’ and the obliterating by contrast of the awareness of many crimes of the Soviet Union against other nations, such as the Katyn massacres."66
UN Russian Federation representative Vitaly Churkin hinted that this is what is behind Russia’s support of the recent United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial": "[M]ember States were bound to include in that condemnation attempts to revise the history of the Second World War and the merits of those who took up arms to fight the Nazis. Any attempt to make heroic the henchmen of fascism must be rejected."67
Non-Jewish American and British power elites also have a vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. As historian Jeffrey Herf recently revealed in his study, The Jewish Enemy, the Holocaust ideology paints the American and British in a good and ethical light, and thus "justifies" their entire war effort against Germany.
As Herf makes clear, one of the important characteristics of mass propaganda is that it appeals to stark contrasts between good and evil. The Holocaust doctrine fills the bill perfectly. He wrote: "Reports of the Final Solution [the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews during WWII] underscored the stark moral dichotomy between Nazi Germany and its allies, on the one hand, and the United Nations [Americans, British, etc.,] on the other. They reinforced the Allies’ conviction that this was a war between freedom and tyranny, good and evil, civilization and barbarism."68
In a formal declaration reflecting the official view of the United States government, it was stated: "The 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany by the U.S. and its allies finally put a stop to dictator Adolph Hitler’s campaign of genocide."69
In a word, take away the Holocaust ideology and one important "justification" of the American and British war effort against Germany is consigned to the dustbin of history. Americans and Britons will start asking uncomfortable questions, such as: why did we go to war with Germany? Maybe we should not have gone to war with Germany, and maybe it was a huge error to be allied with the murderous Stalinist regime?
VIII. The Holocaust Ideology and Israel
The greatest beneficiary of the Holocaust ideology is undoubtedly the state of Israel and the power elites that ardently support political Zionism. As was revealed in the February 4, 2005 issue of The Jerusalem Post, the Holocaust doctrine forms the ideological foundation of Israel: "The tragedy of the Holocaust was a major impetus in the reestablishment of the Jewish people’s home, in its ancient land, noted [Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan] Shalom in [a speech to the United Nations]."70
In May of 2003, expressing a cornerstone of American foreign policy, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot that the "security of Israel is the key to the security of the world."71
If the security of Israel is the key to the security of the world, and since the Holocaust ideology is upholding Israel, then it follows that by upholding the Holocaust ideology you are upholding the security of the world. By discrediting the Holocaust ideology, you are threatening the security of the world—so thinks the pro-Zionist wing of the American National Security establishment. This is most certainly one reason why the US government put forth a formal declaration condemning Holocaust revisionism.72
At the date of this writing, the US and/or Israel are on the verge of carrying out a military strike against Iran. Here is how the Forward, the US’s most important Jewish newspaper, described the situation: "The looming war against Iran is a different story. This time, Jerusalem’s role is not fantasy. Israel’s sense of alarm has been at the center of the story from the get-go. Both the Washington Post and the New Yorker reported this week that Israeli strategists and intelligence experts were playing a serious role in building support for war. President Bush himself said in Cleveland last month that Israel’s safety was a central concern, if not the main one, in assessing the Iranian threat."73
If there is a military strike against Iran, one can predict that the Holocaust ideology will be used to "justify" it. After all, the US and Israel have to prevent "another Holocaust."
IX. The Holocaust Ideology and Marxist Theory
What historian Jeffrey Herf reveals in his study is no surprise. The Holocaust ideology "justifies" and "legitimizes" the massive restitution payments that go to Israel from Germany.
"From 1953 to 1965," Herf points out, "…the Federal Republic delivered to the state of Israel goods such as ships, machine tools, trains, autos, medical equipment, and telephone technology that were crucial for the construction of infrastructure. The West German deliveries amounted to between 10 and 15 percent of annual Israeli imports."74
What is interesting here is that this financial relationship between Germany and Israel serves as an example of the Marxist theory of economic exploitation.
Political philosopher Roger Scruton explains the function of "ideology" in Marxist theories: "[I]deology’ denotes any set of ideas and values which has the social function of consolidating a particular economic order, and which is explained by that fact alone, and not by its inherent truth or reasonableness…Ideology wins support for class rule, by persuading oppressed classes to accept the description of reality which render their subordination ‘natural.’ It therefore has three principal functions: to legitimate, to mystify, and to console."75
The contradictions, absurdities, and outright falsities in the Holocaust ideology are legion.76 The promotion of the Holocaust ideology in Germany is not be explained because of its inherent truth or reasonableness. Rather, its dominance is largely explained by the fact that it serves to "justify" and "legitimate" the exploitative economic relationship, imposed upon a prostrate Germany by the victorious Allies, between the Israeli and German people. The Holocaust ideology "persuades" the German masses that their financial subordination to Israel is "wholly morally correct and natural."
Yet, the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical status quo that it "justifies" contain with it the seeds of its own destruction. The more the German national identity is assaulted with Holocaust falsehoods, the more the German people are financially exploited by this, so to will more and more Germans come to reject the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical order that is associated with it.
If the current German rulers are truly interesting in building a stable democratic society, they would allow freedom of debate on the Holocaust issue, and attempt to get at the whole truth. Basing political systems upon demonstrable falsehoods that degrade and exploit the German people makes for a very politically unstable and volatile situation.77
X. The Holocaust Ideology and Jewish Identity
The Holocaust doctrine is part and parcel of the entire ideological package that forms Jewish identity, and Holocaust revisionism is perceived as a grave threat to this identity.
Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt perceives Holocaust revisionism as an evil assault upon the Jewish self-image and identity. In a frank and honest discussion, he admitted that when he read Holocaust revisionist literature, he "had come face to face with a dangerous personal abyss." His implicit conclusion is that this is one of the main reasons why Holocaust revisionism should be attacked and destroyed.78
Professor van Pelt then quotes Jewish writer Erika Apfelbaum as to why Holocaust revisionism is "so evil" and why it should be attacked and refuted. She stated: "Current Jewish history is deeply rooted in Auschwitz as the general symbol of the destruction of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. For someone whose past is rooted in Auschwitz, the experience of reading through the revisionists’ tortured logic and documentation is similar to the psychologically disorienting experience of sensory deprivation experiments or solitary confinement in prison, where one loses touch with reality. The insidious effect of reading this [Holocaust revisionist] literature is to lose one’s identity as a survivor and, more generally, as a Jew. Therefore, the revisionist allegations serve to dispossess the Jews from their history and in doing so, in seeking to destroy a people’s history, a symbolic genocide replaces a physical one."79
Eventually, the world Jewish community is going to have to face up to the lies and exaggerations in the Holocaust story, and rebuild their religious/ethnic identity on something other than Holocaust falsehoods. This will be a major challenge for Jews in the future.
XI. Closing Statement: What is to be done?
The Holocaust ideology plays an enormous political, social and economic role in world affairs. It is as if the whole emotional, intellectual, and institutional set-up of the post World War II world has been built around it. It serves as an ideological "justification" for the sociopolitical arrangements in many parts of the world today. Despite the fact that it is a demonstrably weak and flimsy ideology, it has amazing resiliency. The reason for this is plain to see. There are powerful Jewish and non-Jewish interests behind it.
One of the best demonstrations of the Holocaust doctrine’s weakness is the fact that it is surrounded with strictly enforced taboos, prison sentences, and threats of career destruction to protect it from rational criticism. This alone should tell people how weak and flimsy it really is. A belief that rests on good reason and solid evidence does not need legal restrictions and extra-legal, underhanded tactics to protect it.
The world sociopolitical status quo that the Holocaust ideology "justifies" and "legitimizes" is threatened with collapse. In this world of endless war and violence, it is the duty of the intellectuals and scholars to attempt to come up with peaceful resolutions to the problems humanity faces. It is now up to the powerful Jewish and non-Jewish interests that are behind the Holocaust ideology to engage its opponents, the revisionists, in free and democratic debate so we may get at the truth about the fate of the Jews during World War II. In this way, we can help to build a more rational and humane world order.
Footnotes
1. "Iran Summit Questions Holocaust," Investor’s Business Daily, 12 December 2006, p. A1.
2. "Olmert asks pope to call on Christians to protest Holocaust denial," Yahoo! News, 13 December 2006.
3. Christine Hauser, "Leaders condemn talks against Holocaust," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 13 December 2006, p. A 9.
4. Ibid.
5. For these and other quotes from world leaders, see the ADL’s web site, "Iran Hosts Anti-Semitic Hatefest in Tehran: Responses from World Leaders." Online: http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/iran_holocaust_conference.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_4
6. For example, see Paul Grubach, "Reflections in the Aftermath of the Iran Holocaust Conference: Is the Holocaust an Indisputable Fact as World Leaders Say?" Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgiran.html
7. Michael Slackman, Mona el-Naggar, Nazila Fathi, "Deep Roots of Denial for Iran’s True Believer," The New York Times, 14 December 2006, p. A 3.
8. Nazila Fathi, "Israel Fading, Iran’s Leader Tells Deniers of Holocaust," The New York Times, 13 December 2006, p. A 10.
9. Leon Poliakov, The Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe (Holocaust Library, 1979), p.108.
10. The Sault Star. (Canada), "Scientific evidence of Holocaust missing," January 18, 1985, p.A11; See Hilberg’s testimony in Barbara Kulaszka, ed., Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian "False News" Trial of Ernst Zundel—1988 (Samisdat, 1992), p. 39. Online: http://zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrd09hilberg.html Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm
11. Pressac, p.429. Online: http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0429.htm
12. Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 5.
13. Ibid, pp. 145, 159.
14. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993), pp. 101, 188.
15. Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz: The Dangers of Distortion," Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending September 30, 1989, p.7; Peter Steinfels, "Auschwitz Revisionism: An Israeli Scholar’s Case," New York Times, November 12, 1989. Robert Jan van Pelt makes a similar point, p. 109.
16. For example, see Ernst Gauss, ed., Dissecting the Holocaust: The Growing Critique of "Truth" and "Memory" (Theses and Dissertations Press, 2000).
17. "The Conclave of Hate," Forward, December 2006, p. A 12.
18. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 33.
19. Nazila Fathi, "Iran Invites Scholars to Assess Holocaust as History or Fiction," The New York Times, 6 December 2006, p. A. 5.
20. Nazila Fathi, "Iran Opens Conference on Holocaust," The New York Times, 12 December 2006, p. A 3.
21. Michael Collins Piper, "What Really Happened in Iran…" Online: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/iranholocaustconf.php
22. Ibid.
23. Online: http://www.davidduke.com/general/live-from-america-and-around-the-worldlisten-to-todays-or-an-earlier-webcast-of-david-duke-live-internet-radio-broadcast-live-every-weekday-sunday-e-mail-or-post-your-questions-to-rep-duke_1333.html#more-1333 Scroll down to David Duke’s Monday, December 11, 2006 broadcast, "Duke Speaks at Holocaust Conference."
24. Nazila Fathi, "Israel Fading, Iran’s Leader Tells Deniers of Holocaust," The New York Times, 13 December 2006, p. A 10.
25. Piper.
26. Robert Faurisson, "The Victories of Revisionism." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vprfvict.html Frederick Toben, "The ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ in Time & Space, not Memory." Online: http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/contents.htm
27. "Rogues and Fools," The New York Times, 15 December 2006, p. A 40.
28. Online: http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html For a short discussion of this with appropriate documentation and links to Juan Coles’s writings, see Online: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History_07/Persia_220307.html
29. Christine Hauser, "Leaders condemn talks against Holocaust," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 13 December 2006, p. A 9.
30. For example, the Anti-Defamation League promotes this falsehood. See "Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his Own Words." Online: http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/ahmadinejad_words.htm
31. Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p.299.
32. "President reiterates that Holocaust is ‘myth.’ Reuters News release, 14 December 2005.
33. Hugh J. Schonfeld, The Passover Plot: New Light on the Life and Death of Jesus (Bantam, 1967).
34. According to the blurbs on the book’s cover, it was discussed in Publishers’ Weekly, Saturday Review, The Queen Magazine, Chicago Tribune, King Features Syndicate, and The Christian Herald.
35. John M. Allegro, The Sacred Cross and the Mushroom: A Study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East (Bantam, 1971).
36. Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it? (University of California Press, 2000).
37. Dion Nissenbaum, "Experts debunk claims in Jesus Documentary," The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 27 February 2007, p.A 4.
38. Elaine Sciolino, "Teacher in Hiding After Attack on Islam Stirs Threats," The New York Times, 30 September 2006, p. A 3.
39. Ibid.
40. "French president orders probe into revisionist comments," European Jewish Press, 25 December 2006. Online: http://www.ejpress.org/article/12289
41. Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (Harper & Row, 1982), p. 461.
42. Lipstadt, p.1.
43. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews: Student Edition (Holmes & Meir, 1985), p. 5.
44. Lipstadt, passim.
45. Quoted in Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on Denial of the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 1992), p. xiv.
46. Marc Perelman, "Iran Proposal for Shoah Rebuffed by Europeans," Forward, 24 February 2006, p.7. "Drawing the Line on Iran, " Forward, 24 February 2006, p. 10.
47. Ibid.
48. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 1967 ed., s.v. "Karl Raimund Popper," by Anthony Quinton.
49. Kevin MacDonald, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples (Writers Club Press, 2002), p.364.
50. Ibid, p. 363.
51. See Mark Weber, "Freedom for Europe’s Prisoners of Conscience!: Irving, Zundel, Rudolf Still in Prison." Online: http://www.ihr.org/news/061112_prisoners_of_conscience.shtml
52. Nuremberg document 008-USSR; IMT "blue series," Vol. 39, pp. 24-25. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 61-62; Lipstadt, p.188, footnote.
53. See photograph at http://zundelsite.org/english/antiprop/plaques/pope.jpg Also, see photograph at Paul Grubach, "The Christian Religion and the Iran Holocaust Conference: An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgpope.html
54. Gutman and Berenbaum. Lipstadt, p. 188, footnote.
55. See footnote 15.
56. Frederick Toben, "The ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ in Time & Space, not Memory." Online: http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/contents.htm
57. Scruton, p. 311.
58. John Vinocur, "Pope Prays at Auschwitz: ‘Only Peace!,’" The New York Times, 8 June 1979, p.A1.
59. Ibid.
60. van Pelt, p.14.
61. Ibid, p.109.
62. Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p.273.
63. Charles Weber, "Cui Bono? An American veteran’s views on non-Jewish toleration and propagation of the Extermination thesis," The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1982, vol 3, no 2, p.105. Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p105_Weber.html
64. General Assembly, GA/10569, 26 January 2007, "General Assembly Adopts Resolution Condemning Any Denial of Holocaust: United States Representative Says to Deny Events of Holocaust Tantamount to Approval of Genocide in All its Forms." Online: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/ga10569.doc.htm
65. Lipstadt, p.213.
66. Weber.
67. footnote 64.
68. Herf, p.176.
69. VOA News, Editorials Reflecting the Views of the United States Government, "Holocaust Conference in Iran," 22 December 2006. Online: http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-12-22-voa5.cfm
70. Liat Collins, "From the Ashes," The International Jerusalem Post, 4 February 2005, p.4.
71. Avraham Shmuel Lewin, "Rice: Israel’s Security is Key to Security of Rest of World," jewishpress.com, 14 May 2003. Online: http: //www.jewishpress.com/news_article_print.asp?article=2380
72. Footnote 69.
73. "The Risks of War," Forward, 14 April 2006, p.10.
74. Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997), p.288.
75. Scruton, p.213.
76. See Gauss.
77. For a discussion of this, see Paul Grubach, "Should Germany and Austria Tolerate Holocaust Revisionism?: Reflections on the Upcoming Irving, Zundel and Rudolf Trials." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgtolerate.html
78. van Pelt, p.70.
79. Ibid.
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