Archive/File: orgs/american/ihr/ihr.newsletter ihr.0492n86 From ubc-cs!destroyer!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!darwin.sura.net!europa.asd.contel.com!uunet!ogicse!psgrain!m2xenix!agora!b-cpu!news Sun May 31 10:57:12 PDT 1992 Article: 620 of alt.revisionism Xref: oneb misc.headlines:1933 alt.revisionism:620 talk.politics.misc:13645 talk.politics.mideast:6725 soc.misc:641 Path: oneb!ubc-cs!destroyer!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!darwin.sura.net!europa.asd.contel.com!uunet!ogicse!psgrain!m2xenix!agora!b-cpu!news From: ralphw@b-cpu.UUCP (Ralph Winston) Newsgroups: misc.headlines,alt.revisionism,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,soc.misc,pdx.general Subject: MORE MEDIA ATTENTION FOR IHR AND REVISIONISM, plus the 2 campus ads! Message-ID:Date: 28 May 92 08:06:21 GMT Article-I.D.: b-cpu.gate.BDXgLB1w164w Organization: Banished CPU, +1(503) 232-6566 Lines: 1185 Here's an article I think you will find informative and thought- provoking. Following it are the texts of Bradley R. Smith's now-well- known controversial CODOH campus newspaper ad, which calls for open debate on the Holocaust controversy, and an even newer ad. Enjoy! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From the IHR NEWSLETTER, April 1992 (Number 86): MORE MEDIA ATTENTION FOR IHR AND REVISIONISM Bradley Smith and IHR Featured on National Television Campus Ad Campaign Goes Forward Israel-First Lobby Strikes Back Anti-Revisionist Campaign of Bigotry Intensifies During the last several weeks, Holocaust Revisionism and the Institute for Historical Review have continued to gain new and unprecedented media attention. In addition to important coverage in newspapers across the country, national television has also been taking note of the growing impact of Revisionism. (For more about this trend, see the reports in recent issues of the _IHR Newsletter_.) Smith on CBS's "48 Hours" Perhaps most noteworthy was a television report about Bradley Smith's campus ad campaign -- which included an interview with him -- that was broadcast nationwide February 26 on the CBS television network's magazine-format program "48 Hours." Smith appeared in his capacity as director of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). He is responsible for a full- page CODOH statement that calls for free speech on the Holocaust issue. Entitled "The Holocaust Controversy: The Case for Open Debate," it has now appeared in ten student newspapers [transcriber's note: even more now, 05/27/92] across the country, and has attracted considerable media attention. Several minutes excerpted from a lengthy taped interview with Smith, which was conducted in his home by CBS reporter Rita Braver, were shown. The segment also reported on the uproar that erupted at Ohio State University following publication in the school's student newspaper of Smith's CODOH statement. Although Smith -- who is also the IHR's media project director -- presented his views calmly and thoughtfully, and generally made a good impression, the context in which the interview was presented inherently encouraged the viewer prejudicially to reject Smith and Revisionism as another alarming manifestation of dangerous hatemongering. Other segments in the hour-long program -- entitled "48 Hours on Hate Street" and devoted to what host Dan Rather called a "rising tide of hate in America" -- focused on Ku Klux Klan activists, African- American militant Al Sharpton, and other "haters." At one point, a "48 Hours" announcer even tried to compare Bradley Smith with Hitler! In fact, the only hatefulness to be seen in the entire segment about Smith and Revisionism was expressed by a mob of Jewish students who besieged the office of the Ohio State University student newspaper to boisterously protest the decision to publish Smith's ad, and to demand that the editor resign. But probably the program's most blatant bias was manifest in what was NOT shown. As mentioned in the February _Newsletter_, the "48 Hours" camera team responsible for this segment also filmed the violent meeting at the University of California at Los Angeles, January 22, at which Jewish Defense League thugs physically attacked Revisionist activist David Cole. The powers that be at CBS news decided not to air even a second of this outburst of REAL hatred. Network officials apparently decided that scenes of Zionist hoodlums beating a young Jewish Revisionist would not "fit" with the image that CBS wanted to project to its many viewers. In spite of its slanted portrayal, this "48 Hours" segment is, on balance, yet another step forward. Even a year or two ago, it would have been almost unthinkable. PBS "Frontline" Report The IHR and Holocaust Revisionism were also featured in an hour- long television report broadcast nationwide March 3 on the Public Broadcasting System network. Hosted by former White House official Hodding Carter, this "Frontline" public affairs report focused on the life and political career of dissident Republican politician David Duke. During the course of the broadcast, which unfortunately gave only a superficial and distorted notion of what the IHR really is and stands for, the front cover of the Fall 1991 issue of the IHR's quarterly _Journal of Historical Review_ was shown. Dr. Evelyn Rich, who has attended several IHR conferences, was featured in a respectful interview that made up a significant portion of the program. After attending the 1989 IHR conference, the British-born historian wrote of the experience: "I found the whole thing absolutely fascinating. It pulled me in. Intelligent, rational, objective people. Where else could you hear such interesting ideas put forward by such dedicated people?" CODOH Ad Campaign Moves Ahead Since our last report (in the February _IHR Newsletter_) on Smith's CODOH ad campaign, his stirring full-page call for open debate on the Holocaust issue has appeared in two more student newspapers: at Washington University (St. Louis), February 18, and the University of Georgia (Athens), March 9. In addition, the University of Washington student newspaper has announced that while it declines to publish the CODOH statment as an advertisement, it will publish it sometime during the next several weeks as a guest commentary. However, the paper, announces, it will do so only after it first "publishes an article examining the ad's claims and its backers." Wherever Smith's CODOH statment has appeared (since October) in student newspapers around the country, there have been campus demonstrations, protest statements by professors and students, and indignant letters and editorials in the student newspaper. At Washington University, 30 persons staged a protest demonstration outside the _Student Life_ offices to protest the decision by the student paper's editors to publish the ad. The demonstrators met on February 17, one day before it actually appeared. And one day later, about 200 persons gathered at a campus rally to denounce Smith and his ad. A few days after that, _Student Life_ editor David Harris attacked Bradley Smith personally in an ignorant and inflammatory "editor's view" essay headlined "Put Smith at the top of enemies list." As we go to press, a similar uproar is developing at the University of Georgia. Even where it has been turned down, heated discussion has been generated over the question of whether or not to publish the ad. At Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), a February editorial in _The Miami Student_ headlined "Printing lies is not our business," sought to justify the paper's decision not to run the ad. Specifically, the editorial charged that Smith's "ad characterizes all evidence to the contrary [that is, for the Holocaust story] as an attempt to 'drum up world sympathy and political and financial support for Jewish causes'." This is a gross misrepresentation, if not an outright lie. What Smith actually wrote in the ad is this: During the war, and in the postwar era as well, Zionist organizations were deeply involved in creating and promulgating anti-German hate propaganda. There is little doubt that their purpose was to drum up world sympathy and political and financial support for Jewish causes. Not a single person who objects to Smith's ad has confessed that his OWN mind has been changed by reading it. Everyone who objects to it claims to see right through its supposed lies and distortions. But, say the would-be censors, the ad is nevertheless so dangerous that it must be banned because others -- who are not quite so perceptive and enlightened -- will be taken in by Smith's seductively persuasive prose. In a topsy-turvy perversion of reality, those who call for free speech on the Holocaust issue are often vehemently denounced and even attacked as bigots and hate-mongers, while those who try to silence Revisionists -- sometimes with violence -- are praised for their tolerance and open-mindedness. During the last several weeks as well, the ongoing controversy surrounding Smith's ad continues to generate a flurry of news reports and commentary in general circulation daily newspapers. According to the editorial page editor of the _St. Petersburg Times_, Bradley Smith is a "Nazi sympathizer." In a self-righteous and ignorant editorial, which also appeared as an opinion piece in _The Seattle Times_ (Feb. 26) and the _Orange County Register_ (Feb. 19), he wrote: Even our most politically correct universities and colleges are shrinking from a confrontation with real bigotry. Holocaust denial now is considered a subject open to debate. White extremists have bought advertising space in college newspapers to argue that six million Jews were not executed in Nazi Germany. Apart from its other falsehoods and distortions, one whopper stands out: By no stretch of the imagination can Smith be considered either a "Nazi sympathizer" or a "White extremist." A "news" report in the _Miami Herald_ (Feb. 19) began by inaccurately telling readers that "if Bradley R. Smith is to be believed, Adolf Hitler was a pretty ice guy and the Holocaust never happened." The article went on to report that the Simon Wiesenthal Center is organizing a special "task force" to counter Smith's "false advertising." Perhaps the most prominent of this team, which will tour campuses across the country, is former "Hogan's Heroes" television actor Robert Clary, who was interned in Buchenwald during the war. ADL Mobilizes The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith -- one of the world's most powerful Zionist organizations -- is hard at work trying to offset the impact of Smith's CODOH ad campaign. Through its 30 regional offices, the ADL's "campus affairs department" has been mobilizing Hillel Jewish student centers and other campus groups for its nationwide anti-Revisionist effort. (ADL bulletin, _On The Frontline_, February) As part of this undertaking, the ADL has developed its own full- page anti-Revisionist "rebuttal" ad. Denouncing what it calls "the haters," this ad is to appear in student papers around the country. For example, seven days after the publication of Smith's free speech call in the student paper of Washington University, the ADL'S "rebuttal" ad also appeared there. It was published in conjunction with the Hillel organization. (_Student Life_, Feb. 25) Among its other violations of truth, the ADL statement falsely asserted that the Institute for Historical Review "is a creation of Liberty Lobby" of Washington, DC. (Similarly, the February ADL _Frontline_ bulletin falsely claims that CODOH is "an offshoot" of Liberty Lobby.) Israel Lobby's AIPAC Joins the Fray The powerful Israel-first lobby is also alarmed. Israel's main lobby organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), attacked Holocaust Revisionism in general, and the CODOH campus ad in particular, in the January 27 issue of its widely- circulated bulletin, _Near East Report_. With proven power to make or break politicians, AIPAC is feared on Capitol Hill more than any other single lobby group. AIPAC, which has been a staunch apologist for the brutal anti-Palestinian policies of the Begin and Shamir governments, has long recognized the importance of the Holocaust propaganda weapon. Some years ago, for example, during an intense congressional debate on an issue critical to Israeli interests, AIPAC distributed copies of _The Holocaust_, a melodramatic paperback novel, to every member of Congress. In its bulletin, AIPAC criticized the _Washington Post_ for editorially defending the right of campus student newspapers to run the CODOH free speech ad. "The fact that such revisionist ads were allowed to appear in student newspapers is yet another indication of the tolerance of anti- Semitism that has evolved on many campuses," the AIPAC bulletin continued. This is utter nonsense, of course. As anyone who takes the time to actually read the ad knows, Smith's call for open debate specifically condemns the anti-Jewish policies of Hitler's regime. More Support for Free Speech On a more positive note, the _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ praised the decision by the Washington University student newspaper to publish the CODOH ad. In an editorial, the influential daily expressed the sound view that "the [student] newspaper's decision to print it strengthens the cause of freedom of speech." Similarly, the student newspaper of Cleveland State University editorially supported the decision of the Ohio State University paper to publish the CODOH ad. (_The Caldron_, Jan. 27). Andy Rooney Veteran journalist Andy Rooney, who is perhaps best known for his curmudgeonly commentaries on CBS television's weekly "60 Minutes" program, took a swipe at the IHR in a syndicated column that appeared in February in daily papers around the country. He wrote: There is an organization in Los Angeles called the Institue for Historical Review that is seriously pressing the idea that the Holocaust never happened and that it is largely an invention of the Jews . . . When everyone who saw the Nazi concentration camps with his own eyes, as I did, is dead and gone, who can say for sure? It's difficult to tell if Rooney is merely ignorant about what Revisionists really say, or if he has chosen to deliberately misrepresent Revisionist scholarship. As anyone even superficially familiar with Holocaust Revisionism knows, every Revisionist readily acknowledges the existence of the wartime German concentration camps. Indeed, the recognized pioneer of Holocaust Revisionism, Paul Rassinier, was himself an inmate of the Buchenwald and Dora camps. Pat Buchanan and Revisionism Criticism of Holocaust Revisionism has figured in some of the more vitriolic attacks that have been leveled in recent weeks against conservative Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan. On a number of occasions in recent years, the former White House official and highly successful political commentator has expressed cautious skepticism about aspects of the Holocaust extermination story. Perhaps the most explicit recent example of such anti-Revisionist Buchanan-bashing has come in an opinion piece by public affairs commentator John Leo. In a grossly unfair attack against Buchanan that appeared in the February 21 issue of _U.S. News & World Report_, Leo sought to securely link Buchanan with Holocaust Revisionism: But Buchanan's most devastating comments have been about the Holocuast. He says that the Nazis could not have used diesel engines to murder 850,000 Jews at Treblinka because diesel fumes just aren't toxic enough. He says that Jews suffering from "Holocaust survivor syndrome" may be indulging in "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics." This is more than routine Buchanan courseness about the Holocaust. The term "group fantasies" and the argument that the Nazis couldn't have killed so many at Treblinka clearly plays to the emerging myth that there was no Holocaust at all. A committee has been placing ads in college newspapers arguing that the Jews made up the story of the six million dead. In effect, Buchanan is acting as a wedge to get this crazy fringe idea into the mainstream. I find it extremely hard to believe that he doesn't know what he is doing. Alan Dershowitz One of the most spiteful and bigoted enemies of both Pat Buchanan and Historical Revisionism is Alan Dershowitz, the sharp-tongued Harvard Law professor, best-selling author, and syndicated columnist. In a column that appeared in early February in daily papers around the country, "Chutzpah" Dershowitz raged against Holocaust Revisionism and Revisionists. (For more about Dershowitz and his recent anti- Revisionist column, see Tom Marcellus' "Director's Corner" column in this issue of the _Newsletter_.) Happily, no one need feel the slightest embarrassment over an attack by Dershowitz -- a character whom even an official of the American Jewish Committee has called an "unscrupulous and self-serving" liar. Toward the Future Things have now reached the point that just about every reasonably educated American now knows that there are people "out there" who "say that the Holocaust never happened." Revisionism is news because Revisionists are making news. Our efforts are clearly having a real impact, and we can no longer be ignored. While media coverage of Holocaust Revisionism has admittedly been mostly hostile and bigoted, this is to be expected. Those who might be discouraged by this should keep in mind that until quite recently, Revisionism was all but ignored by the national media. Moreover, frantic efforts to portray Revisionists merely as "haters" simply will not convince the growing numbers of thoughtful men and women who have doubts about at least the more sensational Holocaust claims. What is happening right now represents a new plateau of awareness -- but by no means a final one. The growing national media attention and the on-going campus ad campaign are only a prologue of things to come. Plans are underway, for example, to launch a new media campaign that promises to open an entire "second front." With your continued help, we will carry on the struggle for historical truth, tolerance and awareness until final victory over the forces of bigotry, cowardice and self-righteous ignorance. _______________________________________________________________________ If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be . . . If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed. -- Thomas Jefferson _______________________________________________________________________ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ---------- Following are the CODOH campus newspaper ad (mentioned in the article above) and the newer expose of the "Human soap" Holocaust myth, which I have also transcribed and am including for completeness. -Ralph Winston ---------- THE HOLOCAUST CONTROVERSY: The Case For Open Debate By Bradley R. Smith THE CONTEMPORARY ISSUE No subject enrages campus Thought Police more than Holocaust Revisionism. We debate every other great historical issue as a matter of course, but influential pressure groups with private agendas have made the Holocaust story an exception. Elitist dogma manipulated by special interest groups corrupts everything in academia. Students should be encouraged to investigate the Holocaust story the same way they are encouraged to investigate every other historical event. This isn't a radical point of view. The premises for it were worked out centuries ago during a little something called the Enlightenment. THE HISTORICAL ISSUE Revisionists agree with establishment historians that the German National Socialist State singled out the Jewish people for special and cruel treatment. In addition to viewing Jews in the framework of traditional anti-Semitism, the Nazis also saw them as being an influential force behind international communism. During the Second World War, Jews were considered to be enemies of the State and a potential danger to the war effort, much like the Japanese were viewed in this country. Consequently, Jews were stripped of their rights, forced to live in ghettos, conscripted for labor, deprived of their property, deported from the countries of their birth and otherwise mistreated. Many tragically perished in the maelstrom. Revisionists part company with establishment historians in that Revisionists deny that the German State had a policy to exterminate the Jewish people (or anyone else) by putting them to death in gas chambers or killing them through abuse or neglect. Revisionists also maintain that the figure of 6 million Jewish deaths is an irresponsible exaggeration, and that no execution gas chambers existed in any camp in Europe which was under German control. Fumigation gas chambers did exist to delouse clothing and equipment to prevent disease at the camps. It is very likely that it was from this life-SAVING procedure that the myth of extermination gas chambers emerged. Revisionists generally hold that the Allied governments decided to carry their wartime "black propaganda" of German monstrosity over into the postwar period. This was done for essentially three reasons. First, they felt it necessary to continue to justify the great sacrifices that were made in fighting two world wars. A second reason was that they wanted to divert attention from and to justify their own particularly brutal crimes against humanity which, apart from Soviet atrocities, involved massive incendiary bombings of the civilian populations of German and Japanese cities. The third and perhaps most important reason was that they needed justification for the postwar arrangements which, among other things, involved the annexation of large parts of Germany into Poland. These territories were not disputed borderlands but included huge parts of Germany proper. The millions of Germans living in these regions were to be dispossessed of their property and brutally expelled from their homelands. Many hundreds of thousands were to perish in the process. A similar fate was to befall the Sudetan Germans. During the war, and in the postwar era as well, Zionist organizations joined with the Allied Governments and became deeply involved in creating and promulgating anti-German hate propaganda. There is little doubt that their purpose was to drum up world sympathy and political and financial support for Jewish causes, especially for the formation of the State of Israel. Today, while the political benefits of the Holocaust story have largely dissipated for the others, the story still plays an important role in the ambitions of Zionist and other organizations in the Jewish community. It is the leaders of these political and propaganda organizations who continue to work to sustain the orthodox Holocaust legend and the myth of German monstrosity during the Second World War. Those who would claim that these interpretations are anti-Jewish are reading into them something which simply is not there. Revisionists do not claim that Jewish leaders or organizations did anything in the war and postwar era which the Allied Governments themselves did not do. For those who believe that the Nuremberg Trials revealed the truth about German war crimes, it is a bracing shock to discover that the then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Harlan Fiske Stone, described the Nuremberg court as "a high-grade lynching party for Germans." The Photographs We've all seen "The Photographs." Endlessly. Newsreel photos taken by U.S. and British photographers at the liberation of the German camps, and especially the awful scenes at Dachau, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. These films are typically presented in such a way in which it is either stated or implied that the scenes resulted from deliberate policies on the part of the Germans. The photographs are real. The uses to which they have been put are base. There was no German policy at any of those camps to deliberately kill the internees. In the last months of the war, while Soviet armies were advancing on Germany from the east, the British and U.S. air arms were destroying every major city in Germany with saturation bombing. Transportation, the food distribution system and medical and sanitation services all broke down. That was the purpose of the Allied bombing, which has been described as the most barbarous form of warfare in Europe since the Mongol invasions. Millions of refugees fleeing the Soviet armies were pouring into Germany. The camps still under German control were overwhelmed with internees from the east. By early 1945 the inmate population was swept by malnutrition and by epidemics of typhus, typhoid, dysentery and chronic diarrhea. Even the mortuary systems broke down. When the press entered the camps with British and U.S. soldiers, they found the results of all that. They took "The Photographs." Still, at camps such as Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen TENS OF THOUSANDS of relatively healthy internees were liberated. They were there in the camps when "The Photographs" were taken. There are newsreels of those internees walking through the camp streets laughing and talking. Others picture exuberant internees throwing their caps in the air and cheering their liberators. It is only natural to ask why you haven't seen those particular films and photos while you've seen the others scores and even hundreds of times. Documents Spokesmen for the Holocaust Lobby like to assure us that there are "tons" of captured German documents which prove the Jewish genocide. When challenged on this, however, they can produce only a handful of documents, the authenticity or interpretation of which is always highly questionable. If pressed for reliable documentation, the Lobby will then reverse itself and claim that the Germans destroyed all of the relevant documents to hide their evil deeds, or it will make the absurd claim that the Germans used a simplistic code language or whispered verbal orders for mass murder into each others' ears. With regard to the alleged genocide of the European Jews, all available documentation indicates that there was no order for it, no budget, no weapon (that is, no so-called execution gas chamber) and no victim (that is, not a single autopsied body at any camp has been shown to have been gassed). Eyewitness Testimony As documentary "proofs" for the mass-murder of the European Jews fall by the wayside, Holocaust historians depend increasingly on "eye- witness" testimonies to support their theories. Many of these testimonies are ludicrously unreliable. History is filled with stories of masses of people claiming to be eyewitnesses to everything from witchcraft to flying saucers. During and after the war there were "eyewitnesses" to mass murder in gas chambers at Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and other camps in Germany proper. Today, virtually all recognized scholars dismiss this eyewitness testimony as false, and agree that there were no extermination gas chambers in any camp in Germany proper. Establishment historians, however, still claim that extermination gas chambers existed at Auschwitz and at other camps in Poland. The eyewitness testimony and the evidence for this claim is, in reality, qualitatively no different than the false testimony and evidence for the alleged gas chambers at the camps in Germany proper. During the war crimes trials many "eyewitnesses" testified that Germans made soap out of human fat and lamp shades from human skin. Allied prosecutors even produced evidence to support these charges. For decades, highly respected scholars at the most prestigious universities in the Western world sanctioned these stories, leading us to believe that they were "irrefutable truths." But with time, many such stories have become untenable, and in May 1990 Yehuda Bauer, director of Holocaust studies at Hebrew University in Tel Aviv, admitted that: "The Nazis never made soap from Jews . . ." (quoted in The Jerusalem Post, International Edition, 5 May 1990, p. 6). This is only one recent example where an "irrefutable" Holocaust "truth" has been exposed as a monstrous lie. With regard to confessions by Germans at war crimes trials, it is now well documented that many were obtained through coercion, intimidation and even physical torture. Auschwitz British Historian David Irving, perhaps the most widely read historian writing in English, has called the Auschwitz death-camp story a "sinking ship" and states that there were "no gas chambers at Auschwitz...." The Auschwitz State Museum has recently revised its half-century- old claim that 4 million humans were murdered there. The Museum now says maybe it was 1 million. But what proof does the Museum provide to document the 1 million figure? None! The communist propagandists who manage the museum have put on display piles of hair, boots and eyeglasses, etc. While such displays are effective propaganda devices, they are worthless as historical documentation for "gassings" or a program of "extermination." Meanwhile, Revisionists want to know where those 3 million souls have been the last 45 years. Were they part of the fabled Six Million? Those who promote the Holocaust story complain that "the whole world" was indifferent to the genocide which allegedly was occurring in German occupied Europe. When asked why this was the case the promoters usually respond by saying that it was due to some great moral flaw in the nature of Western man. At other times they make the absurd claim that people did not realize the enormity of what was happening. It is true that the world responded with indifference. How else should people have responded to that which they did not believe, and which for them was a non-event? It is certain that if there had been "killing factories" in Poland murdering millions of civilians, then the Red Cross, the Pope, humanitarian agencies, the Allied governments, neutral governments, and prominent figures such as Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, Eisenhower and many others would have known about it and would have often and unambiguously mentioned it, and condemned it. They didn't! The promoters admit that only a tiny group of individuals believed the story at the time -- many of whom were connected with Jewish propaganda agencies. The rise of the Holocaust story reads more like the success story of a PR campaign than anything else. Winston Churchill wrote the six volumes of his monumental work, _The Second World War_, without mentioning a program of mass-murder and genocide. Maybe it slipped his mind. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his memoir _Crusade in Europe_, also failed to mention gas chambers. Was the weapon used to murder millions of Jews unworthy of a passing reference? Was our future president being insensitive to Jews? POLITICAL CORRECTNESS And HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM Many people, when they first hear Holocaust Revisionist arguments, find themselves bewildered. The arguments appear to make sense, but "How is it possible?" The whole world believes the Holocaust story. It's just not plausible that so great a conspiracy to suppress the truth could have functioned for half a century. To understand how it could very well have happened, one needs only to reflect on the intellectual and political orthodoxies of medieval Europe, or those of Nazi Germany or the Communist-bloc countries. In all of these societies the great majority of scholars were caught up in the existing political culture. Committed to a prevailing ideology and its interpretation of reality, these scholars and intellectuals felt it was their right, and even their duty, to protect every aspect of that ideology. They did so by oppressing the evil dissidents who expressed "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas. In every one of those societies, scholars became Thought Police. In our own society, in the debate over the question of political correctness, there are those who deliberately attempt to trivialize the issues. They claim that there is no real problem with freedom of speech on our campuses, and that all that is involved with PC are a few rules which would defend minorities from those who would hurt their feelings. There is, of course, a deeper and more serious aspect to the problem. On American campuses today there is a wide range of ideas and viewpoints that are forbidden to be discussed openly. Even obvious facts and realities, when they are politically unacceptable, are denied and suppressed. One can learn much about the psychology and methodology of Thought Police by watching how they react when just one of their taboos is broken and Holocaust Revisionism is given a public forum. First they express outrage that such offensive and dangerous ideas were allowed to be expressed publicly. They avoid answering or debating these ideas, claiming that to do so would give them a forum and legitimacy. Then they make vicious personal attacks against the Revisionist heretic, calling him dirty political names such as "anti- Semite," "racist" or "neo-Nazi," and they even suggest that he is a potential mass murderer. They publicly accuse the Revisionist of lying, but they don't allow the heretic to hear the specific charge against him or to face his accusers so that he can answer this slander. The Holocausters accuse Revisionists of being hate filled people who are promoting a doctrine of hatred. But Revisionism is a scholarly process, not a doctrine or ideology. If the Holocaust promoters really want to expose hatred, they should take a second look at their own doctrines, and a long look at themselves in the mirror. Anyone on campus who invites a Revisionist to speak is himself attacked as being insensitive. When a Revisionist does speak on campus he is oftentimes shouted down and threatened. Campus libraries and bookstores face intimidation when they consider handling Holocaust revisionist materials. All this goes on while the majority of faculty and university administrators sit dumbly by, allowing political activists to determine what can be said and what can be read on their campus. Next, the Thought Police set out to destroy the transgressor professionally and financially by "getting" him at his job or concocting a lawsuit against him. The courts are sometimes used to attack Revisionism. The Holocausters often deceptively claim that Revisionist scholarship has been proven false during a trial. The fact is that Revisionist arguments have never been evaluated or judged by the courts. Finally, the Thought Police try to "straighten out" that segment of academia or the media that allowed the Revisionists a forum in the first place. It can be an instructive intellectual exercise to identify taboo subjects, other than Holocaust Revisionism, which would evoke comparable responses from Thought Police on our campuses. Recently, some administrators in academia have held that university administrations should take actions to rid the campus of ideas which are disruptive to the university. This is a very dangerous position for administrators to take. It is an open invitation to tyranny. It means that any militant group with "troops at the ready" can rid the campus of ideas it opposes and then impose its own orthodoxy. The cowardly administrator finds it much easier and safer to rid the campus of controversial ideas than to face down a group of screaming and snarling militants. But it is the duty of university administrators to insure that the university remains a free marketplace of ideas. When ideas cause disruptions, it is the disrupters who must be subdued, not the ideas. CONCLUSION The influence of Holocaust Revisionism is growing steadily both here and abroad. In the United States, Revisionism was launched in earnest in 1977 with the publication of the book _The Hoax of the Twentieth Century_ by Arthur R. Butz. Professor Butz teaches electrical engineering and computer sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Those who take up the Revisionist cause represent a wide spectrum of political and philosophical positions. They are certainly not the scoundrels, liars and demons the Holocaust Lobby tries to make them out to be. The fact is, there are no demons in the real world. People are at their worst when they begin to see their opponents as an embodiment of evil, and then begin to demonize them. Such people are preparing to do something simply awful to their opponents. Their logic is that you can do anything you want to a demon. That logic will not succeed. * * * For those wishing to verify the truthfullness of statements made in this paper, you may want to contact experts who are prominent authorities on these matters. It's important to ask specific, concrete questions on matters of fact and receive direct and unambiguous answers. Organizations such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League are not scholarly institutions, but are primarily political and propaganda organizations. _______________________________________________________________________ CODOH is a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for College Activities (NACA), and the Free Press Association. CODOH has no affiliation whatever with any political organization or group. _______________________________________________________________________ CODOH speakers are available to address student organizations and other appropriate groups about the Holocaust controversy. For information contact: Bradley R. Smith Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust Tel/Fax: (209) 733 2653 PO Box 3267 Visalia CA 93278 _______________________________________________________________________ Send $3 for the latest issue of Smith's Report, the author's newsletter. You will also receive a packet of literature addressing important questions you may have about Holocaust revisionism. Copies of this ad as a leaflet (postpaid): 10 copies for $2. * 50 copies for $5. 100 or more copies: 8 cents each. _______________________________________________________________________ Your contribution to CODOH will be used to disseminate the good news of Holocaust Revisionism. Our overhead is minimal. Every donation is welcome. Anyone who makes a substantial contribution will be offered the opportunity to monitor the specific use to which the donation will be put. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ---------- The following article appeared in the May, 1992 (#87) issue of the _IHR Newsletter_. At printing time, Bradley R. Smith had so far submitted it as a paid advertisement to student newspapers at about a dozen colleges and universities around the country. I think you will find this to be extremely revealing and thought-provoking. Feel free to copy and distribute this, if you so desire. Long live Truth and Freedom! On page 6 of this issue, the _Newsletter_ says of this article: [...] "Care has been taken to make sure that there is nothing in the ad text that can be cited as a pretext for rejecting it on the basis of supposed untruthfulness or bigotry. "The full-page ad has been prepared in two versions: One is designed for publication in larger "broadsheet" size newspapers, and a second version, with a slightly abridged text, is meant for publication in tabloid size newspapers. "The tabloid size version is printed in actual size on pages four and five of this issue of the _Newsletter_. "We encourage readers to support this new outreach campaign. For a relatively modest amount of money and effort, you can personally arrange for publication of this ad in your own local daily, weekly, community or association paper. "Interested? Let us know, and we'll arrange to send you a "camera- ready" copy of either version of the ad, which you can then take to any newspaper advertising department for processing. "With your support, this new campaign can significantly further the cause of historical truth and awareness." ---------- Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus... The "Human Soap" Holocaust Myth After years of stonewalling, both the _New York Times_ (December 21, 1991) and the _Washington Post_ (January 15, 1992) now editorially acknowledge that it is both ethical and permissable to debate the historical issues surrounding the Holocaust story. The nation's two premier newspapers thus reject statements by officials of major Jewish organizations and of many American colleges and universities, who are still not willing to admit that a First Amendment issue is involved here, and that freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry pertain even to the Holocaust controversy. On campus, the free speech issue is this: Should college students be granted the rights of adults and allowed free access to Revisionist scholarship on the Holocaust, or should students be treated as children, protected from radical scholarship out of fear that with new understanding they might help undermine a "politically correct" view of contemporary history? For half a century now historians have told us that during World War II the Nazis had a policy to exterminate the Jews of Europe, along with homosexuals and Gypsies. We are told that millions were "gassed" at German camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. We have been told that the ghastly process of mass murder was also carried out in Belzec, Buchenwald and Sobibor. And aren't there thousands of survivors who "escaped the gas ovens" and swear that all this is true? And didn't the Nazis make lamp shades from human skin, and manufacture soap from the fat of exterminated Jews? Of course, you may answer, everyone knows it. After all, aren't such bars of "Jewish soap" on display in museums in Israel and other countries? How can there be any doubt? "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," or "false in one thing, false in everything," was a Roman legal principle. If a witness may not be believed in one thing, he should not be believed in anything. This principle is as valid today as it was two thousand years ago. With this in mind, I invite you to read the essay below, condensed from an article by historian Mark Weber that originally appeared in the Summer 1991 issue of _The Journal of Historical Review_. I urge you to consider whether any of the individuals or institutions that have contributed to the perpetuation of the debasing "human soap" hoax deserve to be believed about anything they say about the "Holocaust." -Bradley R. Smith _______________________________________________________________________ "Jewish Soap" By Mark Weber NEARLY EVERYONE HAS HEARD that the Germans killed six million Jews in Europe during the Second World War. Television, motion pictures, newspapers and magazines hammer away on this theme. Revisionist Scholars In recent decades, though, more and more "Revisionist" historians have been challenging the widely accepted extermination story. Revisionists do not "deny the Holocaust." They acknowledge that large numbers of Jews were stripped of their rights and property, cruelly deported to horrible concentration camps and ghettos, and that many hundreds of thousands of Jews died or were killed during the Second World War. At the same time, though, Revisionist scholars point out that numerous Holocaust stories that were once accepted as true have been quietly abandoned in recent years. A Lurid Story One of the most lurid Holocaust claims is the story that the Germans manufactured soap from the bodies of their victims. Although a similar charge during the First World War was exposed as a hoax almost immediately afterwards, it was nevertheless revived and widely believed during the Second. More important, this accusation was "proved" at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, and has been authoritatively endorsed by numerous historians in the decades since. In recent years, though, as part of a broad retreat from the most obviously untenable aspects of the "orthodox" extermination story, Holocaust historians have grudgingly conceded that the human soap tale is a wartime propaganda lie. In their retreat, though, these historians have tried to dismiss the soap story as a mere wartime "rumor," neglecting to mention that international Jewish organizations, and then Allied governments, endorsed and sanctioned this libelous canard. Wartime rumors that the Germans were manufacturing soap from the corpses of slaughtered Jews were based in part on the fact that soap bars distributed by German authorities in Jewish ghettos and camps bore the impressed initials "RIF," which many took to stand for "Rein judisches Fett" or "Pure Jewish Fat." (It did not seem to matter that the letters were "RIF" and not "RJF.") These rumors spread so widely in 1941 and 1942 that by late 1942 German authorities in Poland and Slovakia were expressing official concern about their impact. According to a Polish source quoted in a secret wartime U.S. Army military intelligence report, for example, the Germans were operating a "human soap factory" in 1941 at Turek, Poland. "The Germans had brought thousands of Polish teachers, priests and Jews there and after extracting the blood serum from their bodies, had thrown them on large pots and melted off grease to make soap," the intelligence report added. War Propaganda In spite of its inherently incredible character, the soap story became an important feature of Allied war propaganda. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, wartime head of both the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Congress, publicly charged in November 1942 that Jewish corpses were being "processed into such war-vital commodities as soap, fats and fertilizer" by the Germans. He further announced that the Germans were "even exhuming the dead for the value of the corpses," and were paying fifty marks for each body. In late 1942, the _Congress Weekly_, published by the American Jewish Congress, editorialized that the Germans were turning Jews "by scientific methods of dissolution into fertilizer, soap and glue." An article in the same issue reported that Jewish deportees from France and Holland were being processed into "soap, glue and train oil" in at least two special factories in Germany. Typical of many other American periodicals, the influential _New Republic_ reported in early 1943 that the Germans were "using the bodies of their Jewish victims to make soap and fertilizer in a factory at Siedlce." After the war the soap story was given important legitimacy at the main Nuremberg trial. L. N. Smirnov, Chief Counsellor of Justice for the USSR, declared to the Tribunal: ...The same base, rationalized SS technical minds which created gas chambers and murder vans, began devising such methods of complete annihilation of human bodies, which would not only conceal the traces of their crimes, but also to serve in the manufacturing of certain products. In the Danzig Anatomical Institute, semi-industrial experiments in the production of soap from human bodies and the tanning of human skin for industrial purposes were carried out. Smirnov quoted at length from an affidavit by Sigmund Mazur, an Institute employee, which was accepted as Nuremberg exhibit USSR-197. It alleged that Dr. Rudolf Spanner, the head of the Danzig Institute, had ordered the production of soap from corpses in 1943. According to Mazur's affidavit, Dr. Spanner's operation was of interest to high- ranking German officials. Education Minister Bernhard Rust and Health Leader Dr. Leonardo Conti, as well as professors from other medical institutes, came to witness Spanner's efforts. Mazur also claimed to have used the "human soap" to wash himself and his laundry. A human soap "recipe," allegedly prepared by Dr. Spanner (Nuremberg document USSR-196), was also presented. Finally, a sample of what was supposed to be a piece of "human soap" was submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal as exhibit USSR-393. In his closing address to the Tribunal, chief British prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross echoed his Soviet colleague: "On occasion, even the bodies of their [the Germans'] victims were used to make good the wartime shortage of soap." And in their final judgment, the Nuremberg Tribunal judges found that "attempts were made to utilize the fat from the bodies of the victims in the commercial manufacture of soap." It is worth emphasizing here that the "evidence" presented at the Nuremberg Tribunal for the bogus soap story was no less substantial than the "evidence" presented for the claims of mass extermination in "gas chambers." At least in the former case, an actual sample of soap supposedly made from corpses was submitted in evidence. Witnesses and Historians After the war, supposed Holocaust victims were solemnly buried, in the form of soap bars, in Jewish cemeteries. In 1948, for example, four such bars wrapped in a funeral shroud were ceremoniously buried according to Jewish religious ritual at the Haifa cemetery in Israel. Other bars of "Jewish soap" have been displayed as grim Holocaust relics in Israel and other countries. Numerous Jews who lived in German ghettos and camps during the war helped keep the soap story alive many years later. Neese Godin, for one, was transferred from a ghetto in Lithuania to the Stutthof concentration camp in the spring of 1944. In a 1983 interview, she recalled her arrival there: That day they gave us a shower and a piece of soap. After the war we found out the soap was made out of pure Jew fat, Rein Juden Fett, marked in the initials on the soap that I washed with. For all I know sometimes maybe there was a little bit of my father's fat in that soap that I washed with. How do you think I feel when I think about that? Mel Mermelstein, the former Auschwitz inmate who was featured in a sensationalized April 1991 cable television movie "Never Forget," declared in a 1981 sworn deposition that he and other camp inmates used soap bars made from human fat. It was an "established fact," he insisted, that the soap he washed with was made from Jewish bodies. Renowned "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal repeated the soap tale in a series of articles published in 1946 in the Austrian Jewish community paper _Der Neue Weg_. In the first of these he wrote: During the last weeks of March the Romanian press reported an unusual piece of news: In the small Romanian city of Folticeni twenty boxes of soap were buried in the Jewish cemetery with full ceremony and complete funeral rites. This soap had been found recently in a former German army depot. On the boxes were the initials RIF, "Pure Jewish Fat." These boxes were destined for the Waffen-SS. The wrapping paper revealed with completely cynical objectivity that this soap was manufactured from Jewish bodies. Surprisingly, the thorough Germans forgot to describe whether the soap was produced from children, girls, men or elderly persons. In another article he observed: "The production of soap from human fat is so unbelievable that even some who were in concentration camps find it difficult to comprehend." Over the years, numerous supposedly reputable historians have promoted the durable soap story. Journalist-historian William L. Shirir, for example, repeated it in his best-selling work, _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_. Leading Soviet war propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg wrote in his postwar memoir: "I have held in my hand a cake of soap stamped with the legend 'pure Jewish soap', prepared from the corpses of people who had been destroyed. But there is no need to speak of these things: thousands of books have been written about them." A standard history studies textbook used in Canadian secondary schools, _Canada: The Twentieth Century_, told students that Germans "boiled" the corpses of their Jewish victims "to make soap." _The Anatomy of Nazism_, a booklet published and distributed by the Zionist "Anti-Defamation League" of B'nai B'rith, stated: "The process of brutalization did not end with the mass murders themselves. Large quantities of soap were manufactured from the corpses of those murdered." Acknowledging the Truth In spite of all the apparently impressive evidence, the charge that the Germans manufactured soap from human beings is a falsehood, as Holocaust historians are now belatedly acknowledging. The "RIF" soap bar initials that supposedly stood for "Pure Jewish Fat" actually indicated nothing more sinister than "Reich Center for Industrial Fat Provisioning" ("Reichsstelle fur Industrielle Fettversorgung"), a German agency responsible for wartime production and distribution of soap and washing products. RIF soap was a poor quality substitute that contained no fat at all, human or otherwise. Shortly after the war the public prosecutor's office of Flensburg, Germany, began legal proceedings against Dr. Rudolf Spanner for his alleged role in producing human soap at the Danzig Institute. But after an investigation the charge was quietly dropped. In a January 1968 letter, the office stated that its inquiry had determined that no soap from human corpses was made at the Danzig Institute during the war. Revising the Record More recently, Jewish historian Walter Laqueur "denied established history" by acknowledging in his 1980 book, _The Terrible Secret_, that the human soap story has no basis in reality. Gitta Sereny, another Jewish historian, noted in her book _Into That Darkness_: "The universally accepted story that the corpses were used to make soap and fertilizer is finally refuted by the generally very reliable Ludwigsburg Central Authority for Investigation into Nazi Crimes." Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history, similarly "rewrote history" when she confirmed in 1981: "The fact is that the Nazis never used the bodies of Jews, or for that matter anyone else, for the production of soap." In April 1990, professor Yehuda Bauer of Israel's Hebrew University, regarded as a leading Holocaust historian, as well as Shmuel Krakowski, archives director of Israel's Yad Veshem Holocaust center, confirmed that the human soap story is not true. Camp inmates "were prepared to believe any horror stories about their persecutors," Bauer said. At the same time, though, he blamed the legend on "the Nazis." In fact, blame for the soap story lies rather with individuals such as Simon Wiesenthal and Stephen Wise, organizations like the World Jewish Congress, and the victorious Allied powers, none of whom has ever apologized for promoting THIS vile falsehood. Why did Bauer and Krakowski decide that this was the appropriate time to officially abandon the soap story? Krakowski himself hinted that a large part of the motivation for this "tactical retreat" was to save what's left of the sinking Holocaust ship by throwing overboard the most obvious falsehoods. In the face of the growing Revisionist challenge, more easily demonstrable falsehoods like the soap story have become dangerous embarrassments because they raise doubts about the entire Holocaust story. As Krakowski put it: "Historians have concluded that soap was not made from human fat. When so many people deny the Holocaust ever happened, why give them something to use against the truth?" The bad faith of those making this calculated and belated concession to truth is shown by their failure to note that the soap myth was authoritatively "confirmed" at Nuremberg, and by their unwillingness to deal with the implications of that confirmation for the credibility of the Tribunal and other supposedly trustworthy authorities in establishing other, more fundamental aspects of the Holocaust story. The striking contrast between the prompt postwar disavowal by the British government of the infamous "human soap" lie of the First World War, and the way in which a similarly baseless propaganda story from the Second World War was officially endorsed by the victorious Allied powers and then authoritatively maintained for so many years not only points up a dispiriting lack of integrity on the part of so many Western historians, but suggests a general decline in Western ethical standards during this century. The "human soap" story demonstrates anew the tremendous impact that a wartime rumor, no matter how fantastic, can have once it has taken hold, particularly when it is disseminated as a propaganda lie by influential individuals and powerful organizations. That so many intelligent and otherwise thoughtful people could ever have seriously believed that the Germans distributed bars of soap brazenly labeled with letters indicating that they were manufactured from Jewish corpses shows how readily even the most absurd Holocaust fables can be -- and are -- accepted as fact. (Source references for all of the factual statements in the above essay can be found in the notes section of the original full-length article, published in the Summer 1991 issue of _The Journal of Historical Review_.) _______________________________________________________________________ A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL "Jewish Soap" article with source references, a complete catalog of books and tapes, and four eight-panel leflets on the Holocuast issue -- "Auschwitz: Facts and Myths", "The Liberation of the Camps: Facts vs. Lies", "The Problem of the Gas Chambers", "The Holocaust: Let's Hear Both Sides" -- are available for $2.00 from Institute for Historical Review 1822 1/2 Newport Blvd., #191 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Essays and reviews about suppressed aspects of twentieth century history appear regularly in the IHR's quarterly _Journal of Historical Review_ (Subscription (in the U.S.): $40/year). SPEAKERS ARE AVAILABLE FOR LECTURES, DEBATES AND DISCUSSION GROUPS. Write or phone for details. _______________________________________________________________________ This information provided as a public service by Bradley R. Smith Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) P.O. Box 3267, Visalia, CA 93278 Tel./Fax: 209 - 733-2653 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I hope you found the above articles to be interesting and thought- provoking. Feel free to share it with other thoughtful and concerned individuals. Thank you, Ralph Winston -.- Banished CPU supports FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Currently no fees. CALL: +1(503) 232-6566 (8N1, v.32/42bis) or +1(503) 232-5783 (8N1) UUCP: Domain membership destroyed, so use: agora!b-cpu! @uunet.uu.net Users of Banished CPU are solely responsible for their actions.
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