The Holocaust as Sacred Myth and Ideology:
Final Reflections in the Wake of the Iran Holocaust Conference
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 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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