Reflections in the Aftermath of the Iran Holocaust Conference:
Is the Holocaust an Indisputable Fact As World Leaders Say?
By Paul Grubach
copyright 2006
On December 11 and 12 of 2006, a watershed event took place in this history
of the Holocaust revisionist movement, that group of scholars, intellectuals
and activists who claim there are lies and exaggerations in the traditional
Jewish Holocaust story. The Islamic Republic of Iran hosted a two-day
conference on the Holocaust, in which both the traditional and revisionist
views of this Jewish tragedy of WWII were presented.
World leaders and powerful political organizations all joined in chorus
to condemn the event in harsh terms. One of the most prominent and
often repeated claims in their condemnations is that the traditional view
of the Holocaust is an indisputable fact. To illustrate the point,
let us list some of their comments.
Outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan: “The secretary general
would deeply deplore any conference whose purpose is to question or deny
the reality of the Holocaust.”
Incoming United Nations Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon: “Denying historical
facts especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust is just not
acceptable.”
European Union President Finland (official statement): “The Presidency
condemns in the strongest terms any politically or racially motivated attempts
and the use of pseudo-scholarship to deny or question the Holocaust and
is disturbed by the continuous efforts of the Iranian government to question
or trivialize the undeniable historical facts of the Holocaust and its horrors.”
European Union Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini:
“The conference shows an ‘utter disregard of historically established facts.’”
Swiss Foreign Ministry: “The Shoah is a historical fact. It is
unacceptable to call this into question.”
Slovak Foreign Minister Jan Kubis: “Slovakia resolutely rejects any efforts
at questioning the Holocaust.”
Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Feim Chaushev: “The Holocaust is an
undisputed historical fact and one of the greatest tragedies in human history,
which can move anyone and can no means be called into question.”
The list goes on and on. The reader is encouraged to examine the
Anti-Defamation League’s web site for these and other relevant quotes.1
This claim, that the “Holocaust is indisputable historical fact,” is
blatantly false. In order to demonstrate my point, let us examine
the case of the Nazi concentration camp, Belzec, one of the alleged extermination
camps for Jews. Please keep in mind that this is not even the best
example that I could use, just the simplest to explain in a short amount
of time and space.
Belzec was a Nazi concentration camp located in Eastern Poland.
Premier Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg claimed that the first killing
agent used to mass murder Jews there was either bottled carbon monoxide
or hydrogen cyanide. Later, the camp was equipped with diesel motors,
and the Jews were murdered in “gas chambers” that utilized the diesel exhaust.2
Enter Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, a professor of architecture at the University
of Waterloo in Canada. At the famous Irving-Lipstadt libel trial held
in London between January and April 2000, he testified as an expert witness
on Auschwitz concentration camp. His tome, THE CASE FOR AUSCHWITZ:
EVIDENCE FROM THE IRVING TRIAL, is a revised version of the expert report
that he submitted to the court. It has been trumpeted by mainstream
sources as another definitive refutation of Holocaust revisionism, and van
Pelt is among that group described as “authorities on the Holocaust.”
Professor van Pelt claims that world leaders in the First World War needed
false atrocity propaganda to motivate the masses, but Allied leaders in
the Second World War had no such need for lies. In his own words:
“Fighting Hitler under the inspired leadership of men such as Churchill
and Roosevelt, the Allies had no need for atrocity propaganda…Churchill
was able to mobilize a nation without the need to engage in the very kind
of all-too-easily dismissible atrocity propaganda that the weak leaders
of the First World War found necessary to employ to bolster morale.”3
This is false. The Allies did in fact use false, unsubstantiated
atrocity stories to attain their ends. In December of 1942, the United
Nations Information Office released a statement in regard to the alleged
fate of Jews in German-held Europe. It concluded: “The means employed
in deporting from the ghetto all those who survive murders and shooting
in the street exceeds all imagination. In particular, children, old
people and those too weak for work are murdered. Actual data concerning
the fate of the deportees is not at hand, but the news is available—irrefutable
news—that places of execution have been organized at Chelmo and Belzec,
where those who survive shootings are murdered en masse by means of electrocution
and gas.”4
Here, the pro-Allied United Nations Information Office claimed they had
“irrefutable news” that Jews were murdered en masse by electrocution at
Belzec. We now know that this is false, as the “mass-electrocution-of-Jews”
story is admitted to be mythical, and even van Pelt admits this to be so
in his authoritative book.5
The Belzec electrocution myth further illustrates another flaw in van
Pelt’s methodology and beliefs. As he point out, the POLISH FORTNIGHTLY
REVIEW, an English-language newspaper published by the Polish government
in exile during WWII, published a July 10, 1942 description of the alleged
“electrocution devices” whereby Jews “were murdered en masse at Belzec.”
It stated “the men go to a barracks on the right, the women to a barracks
situated on the left, where they strip, ostensibly in readiness for a bath.
After they have undressed both groups go to a third barracks where there
is an electrified plate, where the executions are carried out.”6
In an attempt to get the reader to believe that these were just “honest
errors” and not deliberate propaganda lies, he resorts to this rationalization:
“In the summer of 1942, when the report was written, no one who was part
of the execution team had left Belzec alive, and thus the description of
the method of killing was based largely on rumor.”7 In other words,
since no one escaped these alleged mass killings alive to precisely describe
the technology of mass murder, false rumors developed as to the exact method
of killing. Nevertheless, the central event—the mass killings of Jews—definitely
took place.
According to a report that was printed in the February 12, 1944 issue
of THE NEW YORK TIMES, “eyewitnesses” did in fact escape these mass executions,
and they lived to “precisely describe” the “actual method of mass murder.”
It is stated: “A young Polish Jew who escaped from a mass execution in Poland
with the aid of false identification papers repeated today a story that
the Germans operated an ‘execution factory’ in old Russian fortifications
in eastern Poland. The Jews were forced naked onto a metal platform
operated as a hydraulic elevator which lowered them into a huge vat filled
with water up to the victims’ necks, he said. They were electrocuted
by current through the water. The elevator then lifted the bodies
to a crematorium above…”
The article continues: “The youth said he personally had seen trainloads
of Jews leave Rawna Luska in eastern Poland in the morning for the crematorium
at near-by Beljec [sic] and return empty in the evening. He was told
the rest of the story, he said, by individuals who escaped after actually
being taken inside the factory.”8
Dr. van Pelt can’t rationalize this one away. Contrary to what
he claims, here we have “eyewitnesses” who “actually escaped a mass electrocution”
and lived to tell the story to another escapee, who then in turn gave a
“precise description” of the electrocution machinery at Belzec to the world.
This shows that pro-Allied media sources in the US were in fact promoting
invented atrocity lies.
And there is more. Consider this “eyewitness” account about the
“electrocution chambers” at Belzec, which was published in the “authoritative”
THE BLACK BOOK: THE NAZI CRIMES AGAINST THE JEWISH PEOPLE: “The Belzec camp
is built underground. It is an electric crematorium. There are
two halls in the underground buildings. People were taken out of the
railway cars into the first hall. Then they were led naked into the
second hall. Here the floor resembled an enormous plate. When
the crowd of men stood on it, the floor sank deep into a pool of water.
The moment the men sank up to their necks, a powerful electric current of
millions of volts was passed through, killing them all at once. The
floor then rose again, and a second electric current was passed through
the bodies, burning them until nothing was left of the victims save a few
ashes.”9
Keep in mind this is based upon an “eyewitness” who “saw these mass electrocutions
with his own two eyes.”
In order to “prove” the existence of “gas chambers,” throughout the entire
book van Pelt relies upon a convergence of evidence—an ensemble of evidence
that supposedly points to only one conclusion. Namely, the gas chambers
existed. Here, I have shown the reader a convergence of evidence (one
United Nations report and some eyewitness accounts) that points to the false
conclusion that murders by electrocution occurred at Belzec.
Dr. van Pelt admits that the evidence to “prove” that Jews were murdered
en masse with diesel exhaust at Belzec is sparse at best: “The evidence
[that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Belzec] is much less abundant
[than the evidence that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Auschwitz].
There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that can compare to that given
by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Hoss, no significant remains, and few archival
sources.”10
Since the “evidence” used to prove that Jews were murdered en masse by
electrocution devices at Belzec is not really qualitatively different from
the “evidence” used to “prove” that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at
Belzec; and since the “evidence” for mass murder by electrocution leads
to a false conclusion, isn’t it also possible that the “evidence” for mass
killings of Jews in gas chambers at Belzec also leads to a false conclusion?
Dr. van Pelt claims the “evidence” leads one to the “moral certainty”
that Jews were murdered en masse in gas chambers at Belzec.11 In light
of what was pointed out here, this is a false conclusion on his part.
As for the world leaders that I have quoted at the beginning of this essay,
they are equally wrong for claiming the traditional view of the Holocaust,
inclusive of “gas chambers” at Belzec, is indisputable.
One must grasp the most important part of my argument. I deliberately
ignored all of the other arguments, evidence and studies that I could muster
to bolster the revisionist conclusion that there were no “homicidal gas
chambers” at Belzec. However, by going to just about any decent college
library in the United States (and if need be, by using the interlibrary
loan department), one can easily view the four sources I used in this article
to show that the world leaders I quoted are dead wrong. To put it
mildly, the traditional view of the Holocaust is very questionable: it is
not an indisputable fact. A simple review of the facts shows how wrong
these powerful people really are.
So why do World leaders and powerful organizations repeat this false
claim that the traditional view of the Holocaust is an indisputable fact?
The answer is simple. If the traditional version of the Holocaust
is accepted as an “indisputable fact,” like the earth revolves about the
sun or certain germs cause certain diseases, then there is no need to examine
the arguments and evidence of those who claim otherwise. Ergo, they
have a “justification” for refusing to publish and examine the arguments
and evidence of Holocaust revisionists—an indirect and stealthy way to censor
the views of the skeptics.
But revisionists should look upon this as a sign of future victory.
World leaders and the mass media realize that they can no longer answer
revisionist arguments with evidence and logic. Their only recourse
left to combat the Holocaust revisionist movement is persecution, imprisonment,
career destruction, personal attacks, slander and the deceitful tactic we
have seen here.
Footnotes
1. See “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
2. Raul Hilberg, THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS: Student Edition
(Holmes and Meier, 1985), p.229.
3. Robert Jan van Pelt, THE CASE FOR AUSCHWITZ: Evidence from the
Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), p.134.
4. THE NEW YORK TIMES, December 20, 1942, p.23.
5. Robert Jan van Pelt, p.145.
6. Ibid, p.145.
7. Ibid.
8. THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 12, 1944, p.6.
9. THE BLACK BOOK: THE NAZI CRIMES AGAINST THE JEWISH PEOPLE (Nexus Press, 1974), p.313. This edition is a reprint of the 1946
edition.
10. Robert Jan van Pelt, p.5.
11. Ibid.
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