The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/r/raven.greg//open-letter-response.002


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From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,alt.politics.white-power,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.jewish,soc.history
Subject: Honesty and obligation (was Re: An Open Letter to Greg Raven)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 21:49:07 -0500
Organization: Absence Software
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References: <4b91ck$9aq@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca> 
NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.109.137.18
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On December 19th, I posted an article which was a reply to Greg Raven's
comment that "there are no photos of Nazi gas chambers."  This article
had message ID , and it
contained fourteen references to photographs and blueprints of Nazi gas
chambers, eight of which were from Mark Van Alstine's article which
I quoted.  Five of these references were URLs that pointed to on-line
sources;  the remainder were references to print sources.

This article with fourteen references to photographs and blueprints of
Nazi gas chambers was also emailed directly to Mr. Raven.  I know he
received it, because he bounced it back to me.

And it should also be pointed out that Mr. Raven had seen some of
those references emailed to him before.  It is also a virtual certainty
that they exist in the IHR library, which he surely has access to.

Next day --

On December 20th, Ken McVay published his "Open Letter to Greg Raven,"
for the fifth time.  Its principle concern was whether Mr. Raven was
lying when he said that he was neither president nor CEO of the IHR,
and when he said that the IHR has no president or CEO.  Several other
concerns were also voiced, none of which directly concern the Holocaust
and evidence for the Holocaust.

Next day --

On December 21st, Mr. Raven responded:

   ... At any rate, none of this has the least bearing on the topic at
   hand:  Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber.

This is dishonesty that boggles the mind.  Fourteen direct references to
photographs and blueprints of Nazi gas chambers were emailed to Mr.
Raven on the 19th, and something else on another topic was posted the
next day.  So Mr. Raven responded to the other topic on the day after
that by saying that he had yet to see photographs and blueprints of Nazi
gas chambers!

How can anyone take this seriously?


Next, Mr. McVay stated, on behalf of the Nizkor Project web site, that
he wished for Mr. Raven to establish cross-links between Mr. Raven's web
site and Nizkor.  Mr. Raven's response was:

   If you and others connected with you were interested in discussing
   the issues, there would be no problem with cross-linking.  However,
   as you and others have attacked me and others on a personal basis,
   and because you continue to do so, I am not interested in
   cross-linking.  You have only yourself to blame.

It is obvious that Mr. Raven has no interest in discussing the issues,
such as the fourteen direct references to photographs and blueprints of
the Nazi gas chambers.  Rather, he picks out the articles that do
concern issues of his own credibility, calls them "personal attacks,"
and states that such personal attacks are the _only_ things to be found.

Again, this is dishonest.


Mr. McVay asked Mr. Raven why he did not respond to my requests that he either
back up or retract his claim that I misquoted him and misrepresented his
words.  Specifically, Mr. McVay wrote:

   ...Mr. McCarthy has repeatedly demanded that you cite the specific
   "misquote of something" you wrote, and yet you, having accused him
   of deliberate misrepresentation of your words, have thus far failed
   to provide evidence of the truth of your accusation.

Mr. Raven's reply was:

   From my exchanges with Mr McCarthy, I have learned that he is in no
   way interested in rational debate, and that he delights in diverting
   the discussion away from the topic at hand, as you often do.
   Therefore, responding to him is usually pointless and
   counterproductive.
   
   [...]
   
   ...it is off-topic. Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber.

Mr. Raven, I frankly do not care whether it is off-topic.  You have made
a claim that casts aspersions on my character, and dirties my
reputation.  You have stated publicly that I am a liar, or at least very
sloppy in my quotations and paraphrases.  I take my reputation for
honesty, specifically for accurate quotation, quite seriously.  I am
proud of all the work that I have put into making my quotations and
paraphrases extremely accurate, and I simply must protest when you state
that I have made an error, and imply that it was a purposeful error.

Do you understand?  This is something that I am _personally_ demanding
of you.  Either back up your claim by letting me know what you're
talking about, so that I can determine its validity, or retract your
claim.  You owe that to me _personally_.

It is not I who am diverting the discussion.  You made a public
claim about me that had nothing to do with the Holocaust.  I am
simply following up on it, as is my right.


Finally, I note Mr. Raven saying, with regard to the fact that the
IHR has made a call for funds for a web site:

   The IHR has taken steps to launch its own Web site. In the mean
   time, my site is the best source for IHR materials.
   
   I will stop claiming that I finance my Web site out of my own monies
   as soon as someone else takes over that financing. Until then, it is
   a true statement. I have never received any money from the IHR or
   anyone else to help pay for my Web site / Internet account.

I have referred to Mr. Raven's web site several times in the 66 QAR as
the "IHR-funded web site."  This was because I assumed, logically
enough, that the IHR's call for funds was a call for funds to go to Greg
Raven.  The facts are that:

   * in late 1994 the IHR stated that one of its goals for 1995 was to
     begin spreading its propaganda on the Internet, and
   
   * it is now the end of 1995, and
   
   * Mr. Raven is the only agent of the IHR on the Internet, and
   
   * Mr. Raven has not previously answered queries as to where that
     money was going.

Based on those facts, which were all that I knew prior to this point, I
feel that I was making a perfectly valid assumption.

However, Mr. Raven has now stated otherwise.

It is true that Mr. Raven has lied in the past, and that I do not
consider his word to be worth very much for this reason.  However, I see
no reason to disbelieve him on this point.  He is surely a more
authoritative source than I am about where the IHR is putting its money.
I cannot contradict him.

For that reason, I will remove the references to his site as the
"IHR-funded web site" in the 66 QAR, when I next update those web pages.
I expect to find time to apply such an update within the next two days.

I realize that this will not convince Mr. Raven that I am a reasonable
person.  However, I am not doing this for Mr. Raven;  I am doing this
because I am an honest person and it would go against my nature to
intentionally propagate information which I believe to be in error.

The 66 QAR can be found at:

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/

This article has been posted and emailed to Mr. Raven and Mr. McVay.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net     Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
 Unless you specify otherwise, I assume pro-"revisionism" email
 to be in the public domain.            I speak only for myself.





Subject:     Re: Zundel's UFO Research on the WEB
Sent:        12/19  1:42 PM
Received:    12/19  1:47 PM
From:        Jamie McCarthy, jamie@voyager.net
To:          ihrgreg@kaiwan.com

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups:
can.general, alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.culture.german)

ihrgreg@kaiwan.com (Greg Raven) wrote:

: Ever notice how there are no photos of Nazi gas chambers? I mean *ever?*

mvanalst@rbi.com (Mark Van Alstine) wrote:

: In "Auschwitz: a history in photographs" (ISBN 0-253-35581-8):
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. View of Gas Chamber and Crematorium
: II. Plate 33 & 34; p. 67.
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Gas Chamber and Crematorium IV.
: Plate 38; p. 69.
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Gas Chamber and Crematorium V. Plate
: 39; p. 70.
: 
: Picture of Cellars of Block 11. "in September 1942, 600 Soviet
: prisoners of war and 250 Polish political prisoners were taken from
: the camp infirmery and murdered here with Zyklon B gas to test its
: efficiency as instrument of mass murder." Plate 124; p. 121.
: 
: In "Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945" - 1st American ed. (ISBN
: 0-8050-0938-8): Picture of Crematorium III in Birkenau.
: 
: In "Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945" (ISBN 3-87490-528-4): Picture
: of "Barracke X" (gas chamber and four crematoriums) at Dachau. Plate
: 363; p. 173.
: 
: 
: But I suppose you _really_ meant the _inside_ of a Nazi gas-chamber,
: didn't you? Hmm, let's see:
: 
: In "Auschwitz: a history in photographs" (ISBN 0-253-35581-8): Picture
: of the _interior_ of the gas chamber of Auschwitz I. "This gas
: chamber, the first to be used in Auschwitz, operated from the end of
: 1941 to 1942. It was not originally constructed as a gas chamber,
: having been improvised in the mortuary of the camp's crematorium."
: Plate 166; p. 155.
: 
: In "Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945" (ISBN 3-87490-528-4): A
: picture of the _inside_ of the gas-chamber at Majdenek. Plate 404; p.
: 196.

I'll add Plate 28 from Gilbert's _Auschwitz and the Allies_, before
p. 193.

And don't forget on-line photographs:

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/rue/RUE3-PlanChm1.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema3.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/plan01.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/chambr01.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema401.html

It's worth pointing out that Mr. Raven is of course aware of all of
these (in fact, at least one of those URLs has been emailed to him
repeatedly).  He is, after all, president and CEO of the IHR, which
has a library that I'm sure includes _Auschwitz and the Allies_ and
_Auschwitz:  A History in Photographs_.  If he wishes to see photos
of gas chambers, he must merely go to the library and start looking
through books.

He will of course simply say "those aren't gas chambers."  Which I
for one will be glad to see, because at that point he will have to
start defending his position.  _Why_ aren't they gas chambers, Mr. Raven?
Tell us what convinced you that they were not gas chambers.  Write us
an essay on the topic.  Go into detail.  Please.

Posted and emailed to Mr. Raven.  Followups to alt.revisionism.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net     Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
 Unless you specify otherwise, I assume pro-"revisionism" email
 to be in the public domain.            I speak only for myself.





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Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 16:52:20 -0400
From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
To: ihrgreg@kaiwan.com
Subject: Re: Adventures in Nizkorland
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
References: <4kkiss$pfl@wi.combase.com> <31719e4c.10548747@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <4kti0j$m6c@useneta1.news.prodigy.com>  <317888D5.2992@kaiwan.com> <199604210641.CAA25739@vixa.voyager.net> <3179E09D.45C@kaiwan.com>
Organization: Absence Software

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups:
alt.revisionism)

Greg Raven (ihrgreg@kaiwan.com) wrote:

> To what gas chambers are you referring? Can you show me or draw me a
> picture of one?

Jamie McCarthy wrote:

> Mr. Raven here engages in the favorite activity of Holocaust-deniers on
> the net:  he repeats previous claims as if they had never been
> addressed.
>
> For people who have never seen this question before -- "show me or draw
> me" -- rest assured that it is not new.  Mr. Raven has asked it many
> times.  It has been answered many times.  He has ignored each answer.

[example deleted]

> http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/r/raven.greg/open-letter-response.002

ihrgreg@kaiwan.com wrote:

> I encourage everyone to check out the material at the URL show above.
> It is a perfect example of the way the Nizkor people operate. They
> claim that something has been shown over and over, yet they seem
> completely unable to produce the very thing they claim to be making
> available!

Appended to this article.

> The URL above, for those who do not have Web access, is nothing more
> than a rant directed toward me

If "a rant" is careful documentation of your repetition of this
dishonest question, after it has been answered many times, then I guess
it is indeed a rant.

> because I bounced Mr. McCarthy's
> abusive and off-topic messages back to him without reading them

Remember, Holocaust revisionism is the intellectual adventure of the
twentieth century.

Remember, what revisionists want is "open debate."

Remember, revisionists are truth seekers.

Unless the truth comes from someone they don't personally like.  In that
case, they ignore that person.  When it's convenient.

> for a
> period of a couple months. Now, he claims that at least one of these
> messages contained proof of the existence of a Nazi gas chamber,

Ah!  Notice the bait-and-switch!

Greg Raven asks repeatedly for a photograph or a drawing of a Nazi gas
chamber.  These have been repeatedly provided for him.  Yet he continues
to ask, "show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber."

Here, where he has to admit that references to photographs were emailed
to him, he suddenly refers to them not as photographs or drawings, but
as "proof of the existence of a Nazi gas chamber."

You see, Mr. Raven knows the difference quite well.  He knows that as
long as _he_ is allowed to define what "proof" is, his standard of
"proof" will not be met, so it would be impossible for that email, or
any other document, to provide "proof" of the Nazi gas chambers.

So why does he ask for pictures of things which, by his definition,
don't exist?

Because it's a rhetorical trick.

As I wrote, back on December 19th, 1995, all he has to do is look up
the references given -- but:

   He will of course simply say "those aren't gas chambers."  Which I
   for one will be glad to see, because at that point he will have to
   start defending his position.  _Why_ aren't they gas chambers,
   Mr. Raven?  Tell us what convinced you that they were not gas
   chambers. Write us an essay on the topic.  Go into detail.  Please.

But he won't go into detail, because the more detail he goes into, the
more obvious it becomes that his standard of "proof" is entirely
unreasonable and hypocritical.

That's the bottom line:  it's a rhetorical trick.  And it's a pretty
good rhetorical trick, which is why Mr. Raven doesn't want to give it up
even after it's been answered and explained time and time again.

> something no historian has been able to provide. Something not even
> the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has. Something one
> cannot even see at Auschwitz or Birkenau!

Oh, utter nonsense.

> This is truly news, yet,
> instead of saving that document, he chooses to save (or at least make
> reference to) an off-topic rant.

You're right, Mr. Raven.

Fortunately, I save all my email and news postings.  So I took thirty
seconds to dig up that article with the fourteen documented references
and appended it to the URL above.

> So we are left where we were at the beginning: Show me or draw me a
> Nazi gas chamber.

Here is my original post containing fourteen references to print and
online photos of Nazi gas chambers.

I am emailing this article to him, again.  But then, maybe he will
simply claim that he deleted _this_ email unread as well.  Gee, wouldn't
that be convenient?

You can also find this article at:

http://bastion.dejanews.com/cgi-bin/dngetdoc.html?RECNUM=5506929+SERVER=dnserver.db95q4+CONTEXT=830119492.8641
http://bastion.dejanews.com/cgi-bin/nph-dnquery?search=thread+threaded=1+RECNUM=%3cjamie-1912951342000001@198.109.137.32%3e%231/1

And now, also at the URL that Mr. Raven encourages everyone to check out:

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/r/raven.greg/open-letter-response.002



Newsgroups: can.general,alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.culture.german
Subject: Re: Zundel's UFO Research on the WEB
From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy) 
Message-ID: 
References: <4ab7cn$a68@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca> <4adn2g$9n9@tricia.msn.fullfeed.com>  
Organization: Absence Software
Followup-to: alt.revisionism

ihrgreg@kaiwan.com (Greg Raven) wrote:

: Ever notice how there are no photos of Nazi gas chambers? I mean *ever?*

mvanalst@rbi.com (Mark Van Alstine) wrote:

: In "Auschwitz: a history in photographs" (ISBN 0-253-35581-8):
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. View of Gas Chamber and Crematorium
: II. Plate 33 & 34; p. 67.
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Gas Chamber and Crematorium IV.
: Plate 38; p. 69.
: 
: Picture of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Gas Chamber and Crematorium V. Plate
: 39; p. 70.
: 
: Picture of Cellars of Block 11. "in September 1942, 600 Soviet
: prisoners of war and 250 Polish political prisoners were taken from
: the camp infirmery and murdered here with Zyklon B gas to test its
: efficiency as instrument of mass murder." Plate 124; p. 121.
: 
: In "Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945" - 1st American ed. (ISBN
: 0-8050-0938-8): Picture of Crematorium III in Birkenau.
: 
: In "Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945" (ISBN 3-87490-528-4): Picture
: of "Barracke X" (gas chamber and four crematoriums) at Dachau. Plate
: 363; p. 173.
: 
: 
: But I suppose you _really_ meant the _inside_ of a Nazi gas-chamber,
: didn't you? Hmm, let's see:
: 
: In "Auschwitz: a history in photographs" (ISBN 0-253-35581-8): Picture
: of the _interior_ of the gas chamber of Auschwitz I. "This gas
: chamber, the first to be used in Auschwitz, operated from the end of
: 1941 to 1942. It was not originally constructed as a gas chamber,
: having been improvised in the mortuary of the camp's crematorium."
: Plate 166; p. 155.
: 
: In "Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945" (ISBN 3-87490-528-4): A
: picture of the _inside_ of the gas-chamber at Majdenek. Plate 404; p.
: 196.

I'll add Plate 28 from Gilbert's _Auschwitz and the Allies_, before
p. 193.

And don't forget on-line photographs:

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/rue/RUE3-PlanChm1.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema3.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/plan01.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/chambr01.html

http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema401.html

It's worth pointing out that Mr. Raven is of course aware of all of
these (in fact, at least one of those URLs has been emailed to him
repeatedly).  He is, after all, president and CEO of the IHR, which
has a library that I'm sure includes _Auschwitz and the Allies_ and
_Auschwitz:  A History in Photographs_.  If he wishes to see photos
of gas chambers, he must merely go to the library and start looking
through books.

He will of course simply say "those aren't gas chambers."  Which I
for one will be glad to see, because at that point he will have to
start defending his position.  _Why_ aren't they gas chambers, Mr. Raven?
Tell us what convinced you that they were not gas chambers.  Write us
an essay on the topic.  Go into detail.  Please.

Posted and emailed to Mr. Raven.  Followups to alt.revisionism.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net     Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
 Unless you specify otherwise, I assume pro-"revisionism" email
 to be in the public domain.            I speak only for myself.



Posted/emailed.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net     Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
 Unless you specify otherwise, I assume pro-"revisionism" email
 to be in the public domain.            I speak only for myself.



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