Nizkor FTP file: people/c/cole.david/cole-vs-faurisson-struthof
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Newsgroups: misc.test,alt.revisionism
From: k044477@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Jamie R. McCarthy)
Subject: David Cole's 16-page letter
Message-ID: <1995Jun11.211334.27075@hobbes.kzoo.edu>
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo MI 49006
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 21:13:34 GMT
David Cole, the only known Jewish Holocaust "revisionist," has
recently responded to criticisms from his "colleagues," specifically
Robert Faurisson and Henri Roques, in a sixteen-page letter. He
describes an intense barrage from Robert Faurisson, and an aiding and
abetting of this from such other "revisionists" as Bradley Smith and
Mark Weber. As Mr. Cole describes it, he has responded privately for
a number of years, but now feels that a line has been crossed and is
choosing to air his frustrations with the "revisionist" movement, and
Faurisson in particular, publicly.
The first seven pages of the letter are devoted to attacking points
that Faurisson has made in the past. In the next six pages after
that, Cole defends his reputation against Faurisson's charges that a
robbery was fabricated -- a bit confusing because I haven't seen the
robbery story, and Cole argues about details which mean nothing to me.
In any event, throughout the letter, and in the beginning and ending
pages particularly, Mr. Cole makes Faurisson out to be quite
dishonest. I am glad to see that he has suddenly decided to reveal
the doubts he's had all these years, though I don't understand why he
waited for so long. I address this in my eight-page letter of reply
to him, which will follow in a separate article.
To pique your curiosity, here are some excerpts from Cole's letter:
...many of the points Faurisson has made about Krema 1 are
dangerously fraudulent.
...I had come to believe, after a thorough investigation of
Faurisson's claims, that any "assurance" from Faurisson should not
be uncritically accepted, but rather immediately suspect.
Revisionists want it both ways; they want to A) claim that Krema 1
in its present state is a post war creation and B) use Krema 1's
present state as proof that gassings couldn't have occurred in it.
Faurisson had ALTERED his fax and CHANGED the story...replacing the
word "oven" with "gas chamber."
...as I have just shown, Faurisson isn't above altering his own
texts if the situation requires...
(Real historians have been saying all of the above for years.)
To hear Fritz [Berg] tell it, Faurisson has been hard at work
keeping Fritz' articles out of revisionist publications. And Fritz'
crime? He dares to point out some of Faurisson's factual errors.
(How the yowls of "censorship" would arise if someone from the
"establishment" tried to keep Fritz Berg's articles from being
published! But when Faurisson does it, nary a peep.)
The video from my '92 trip has never been sold, just given free to
Bradley's closest supporters.
(Dan Gannon said in October of 1994 that it sold for $50.)
Each time I stressed my opposition to racism or Nazism, each time I
stressed that my revisionist views were the product of intellectual
curiosity and not pro-fascism, I was embraced even closer by the
far-right because, after all, who better to have as an ally than
someone from the opposing camp?
...folks who only months earlier were giving me ridiculous praise as
a "great man" are now giving me equally ridiculous scorn for being
a "turncoat" now that I've dared to stray from the standard dogma.
("Dogma"? The motivating impulse in Holocaust "revisionism" is
supposed to be _anti-dogma_!)
...I'm truly perplexed by the SURPRISE that some of you
[Holocaust-deniers] are showing about my Struthof statements.
Stop acting like you've been hustled, guys. From day one I made it
clear that I'm a leftist, race-mixing, atheistic Jew who has no
allegiance to any dogma and who'd gladly agree that there were gas
chambers if only the proof could be found. It's not my fault if
some of you thought that I was only saying those things to fool the
public and that privately I was "one of you."
Faurisson is...quoting a passage and then TELLING us what we've just
read, hoping we won't notice any incongruity between the passage
and Faurisson's explanation. Faurisson is quoting a passage that
speaks of exterminations in part - AT LEAST in part, and then he
TELLS us that we in fact HAVEN'T just read what we've read...
...I think there is a very high probability, based on my own strict
standard of documentary evidence, that the Struthof gas chamber was
indeed used to kill Jews...
In a cover letter to me, Mr. Cole also attacked his former co-worker,
Bradley Smith, for defending Faurisson from Cole's criticism. Mark
Weber, Robert Countess, and Faurisson himself also were attacked by
Cole. Apparently, all of them think that Faurisson should be spared
that criticism because of his suffering at the hands of the French
government and so on.
Odd. Contrast this to the sidebar in the March 1995 issue of "Smith's
Report," in which Mr. Smith writes:
Those who protest that it is more important to be 'sensitive' to
[Holocaust] 'survivors' than truthful about the historical record
represent a world view that is foreign to a free society.
But those who think it's more important to be sensitive to the
suffering of _Holocaust-deniers_ than truthful...that's perfectly all
right, apparently, according to Mr. Smith.
In his cover letter, Mr. Cole rightly points out that Holocaust
survivors underwent far worse suffering than Faurisson has ever
known.
I would like to post that cover letter to Usenet, but I am awaiting
permission from Mr. Cole (again, see my letter of reply). I would
also like to include the entire March issue of Smith's Report here,
which includes the short note from Faurisson and the long reply from
Cole which preceded the Cole-Faurisson feud which transpires below.
Its revelations-per-word ratio is lower than Cole's 16-page letter,
however, and I cannot bring myself to type it in at this point.
Perhaps when I have more time.
Please do note that my publishing the letter here, without appreciable
comment, is certainly _not_ an endorsement of Mr. Cole's position. My
lack of comment is due to lack of time, not lack of opinion. This
goes double for the lengthy discussion of the "Cole robbery
conspiracy theory" on pages 8 to 13, which I find utterly absurd and
unworthy of mention -- but it's in here because I wish to present
Cole's letter in its entirety, and besides it's apparently the issue
which prompted Mr. Cole to write this letter at all.
All bracketed comments (page numbers and "sic"s) are mine. Any typos
not marked with "[sic]" are my mistakes. Two typos are marked with
"(sic)"; those are Cole's "sic"s for Faurisson's typos. And now, the
letter itself.
[p. 1]
The charges made by Monsieur Roques don't interest me nearly as much
as the history behind this missive. I will digress for a moment
before returning to M. Roques and his letter. This whole episode
actually began with Professor Robert Faurisson. This digression is
necessary because, in other to understand the genesis of the Roques
letter, one must first understand my experiences with Robert
Faurisson. Even since I became known as part of the revisionist
"movement," Faurisson has been relentless in his personal attacks
against me. Since the more I came to know Faurisson's work, the less
I respected him as a serious scholar, I never worried myself about
these attacks any more than I concerned myself over the myriad of
cheap shots taken at me from both ends of the Holocaust spectrum:
Neo-Nazis and racist on the "right" have traditionally claimed that I
am a Jewish "agent" involved in a grand scheme to destroy revisionism
from within. Various Jewish and "anti- revisionist" journalists and
activists on the "left" have claimed that I am in fact a NAZI agent,
involved in a grand scheme to "deny" history and, I suppose, help
Nazis in some way (these conspiracy theories are rarely fleshed out
beyond the initial charge of being an "agent" of some kind). I
despise ideological dogma with a passion, and I've long held that if
you're hated by extremists of all stripes and from all corners, then
you must be doing something right. So I actually came to take these
attacks as being unwitting compliments.
Still, since this recent attack by Faurisson (the Roques letter,
which was actually commissioned by Faurisson, but more on that later)
is his most public yet, and since several people are asking for a
response from me, I figured I might as well tackle all of Faurisson's
previous charges all at once, since I've never offered a public
response to any of them before (I've written quite a few private
responses, though). I apologize for the length of this response, but
I'd like to be able to take the time to be specific, VERY specific,
about Faurisson's current and previous charges and my responses to
them.
In November 1992, after Bradley Smith announced my forthcoming "Dr.
Piper" video, Bradley was subjected to several lengthy faxes from
Professor Faurisson attacking the video (and attacking me), even
though Faurisson had never even SEEN the video in question. These
faxes were sent to Bradley and a host of other revisionists, but NOT
to me, even though I was the subject of the faxes and the object of
Faurisson's wrath. Faurisson attacked my "Piper" video by stating
that since he, Faurisson, had already told the world that Krema 1 in
its present state was not genuine, no more dialogue on the subject
was needed. Dr. Piper's admissions were unnecessary, because
Faurisson's assurance that Krema 1 is not in its original state
should be enough to convince anybody. Now, by that time I had come to
believe, after a thorough investigation of Faurisson's claims, that
any "assurance" from Faurisson should not be uncritically accepted,
but rather immediately suspect. Besides, the point of the "Piper"
tape was to show that a world renown [sic] Holocaust scholar -
someone who is NOT a revisionist - admits that Krema 1 is not in its
original state. The opinions of revisionists are irrelevant in this
context. The fruit of the "Piper" tape is that after its release the
Auschwitz State Museum changed its spiel and now tourists are told
that the interior of Krema 1 in its present state is a post-war
remodeling job.
[p. 2]
There was something troubling about Faurisson's assertion that I need
not have investigated Krema 1 because he had already made his
pronouncement on the issue, and therefore it is now dead. In fact,
many of the points Faurisson has made about Krema 1 are dangerously
fraudulent. I'll give you my opinion of a few of Faurisson's favorite
points: The fact that the "Zyklon B induction chimneys" are not gas
tight is irrelevant because we know they were added after the war.
The fact that the door on the southeast side of the room is not gas
tight (and has no glass in the peephole) is likewise irrelevant, as
we know that this door was added AFTER the supposed "gas chamber"
phase of the room. Also irrelevant is the wall in front of this door,
that blocks the view from the peephole. This wall was added after the
"gas chamber" phase. The flimsy wooden door, also on the southeast
side, is irrelevant because it, too, was added after the "gas
chamber" phase. And the fact that the door on the northwest side has
panes of glass in it is moot because there was once a dividing wall
on that side of the room, in which was located the door that would
have been the door to the "gas chamber." This wall was knocked down
erroneously by the Soviets, who were trying to restore the room to
what they believed it looked like during its "gas chamber" phase.
That there is a doorway without a door, or evidence of hinges, which
leads to the crematorium ovens is not in and of itself evidence
against gassings because a door DID once exist that led from the
morgue into the cremation room. The current doorway without a door is
the post-war Soviet creation. And the fact that the chimney is not
connected to the building is not relevant because we know that there
was at one time a chimney there, and that it was connected to the
building, and that cremations did in fact take place in this
building, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY that the tour guides have always
honestly represented this chimney as a reconstruction, so we can't
make the charge of fraud.
As I wrote in a January 1993 letter of response to Faurisson's
charges (a letter also sent to Mark Weber, because Weber had also
been a recipient of Faurisson's fax) "Revisionists want it both ways;
they want to A) claim that Krema 1 in its present state is a post war
creation and B) use Krema 1's present state as proof that gassings
couldn't have occurred in it." In other words, there are certain
things in Krema 1 that we can't use as negative evidence for gassings
(that is, if we're honest), because they were added after the war. We
must always concentrate on the state of the room DURING THE TIME
PERIOD WHEN THE GASSINGS ARE SAID TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE.
Faurisson's point that there couldn't be a gas chamber next to the
crematorium ovens (the gas would "ignite") is questionable, but this
has already been dealt with exhaustively by Fritz Berg, although I
think I should add that Faurisson's response to Pressac's claim that
there were homicidal gas chambers in Kremas 4 and 5 is that the term
"gaskammer," [sic] which Pressac finds in some paperwork concerning
these Kremas, must have meant _delousing_ gas chamber. By giving this
explanation, Faurisson therefore admits that one COULD conceivably
have a gas chamber of some kind in a crematorium without risking
explosion. In order for Faurisson to explain Pressac's points about
Kremas 4 and 5, he must by necessity contradict his oft-used point
about the impossibility of using Zyklon B near cremation ovens. Also,
I should note that Faurisson admits that Krema 1 was fumigated with
Zyklon B. I'm assuming that he agrees that these fumigations didn't
result in any explosions.
[p. 3]
Perhaps Faurisson's best-loved point about Krema 1, that it would
have been dangerous to locate a gas chamber across the street from
the SS barracks, restaurant, and hospital, is pure nonsense. Zyklon B
is lighter than air and would rise straight up when ventilated. It
would not journey across the street and enter under doors. The proof
of this is the fact that not only were the regular Zyklon delousing
complexes right next door to barracks where Nazis and inmates alike
slept, worked, and ate, but some of the living quarters in the
Auschwitz Main Camp actually had Zyklon B delousing rooms INSIDE them
- and on the first floor no less. When these delousing rooms would be
ventilated, the windows on the second floor would simply be closed.
And as I mentioned before, Faurisson admits that Krema 1 was
fumigated (and fumigated enough times to leave the traces of Zyklon B
that still exist in the walls). I'm assuming that Faurisson agrees
that when Krema 1 was ventilated after the fumigations, the escaping
Zyklon didn't kill everyone in the SS buildings across the street.
Humorously, while Faurisson has harped on these futile points for
years, he's neglected the manhole in the center of the Krema 1 morgue
room (as has his former buddy Pressac).
Now, for the record, I don't believe that there were ever gassings in
Krema 1, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to use false claims to
make my point.
As I added in my January '93 letter to Mark Weber, "I think that in
my video I presented better points casting doubt on the existence of
a gas chamber, but unlike Faurisson I realize the difficulty of
proving a negative (i.e. presenting a piece of evidence that
"disproves" a gas chamber) and, as I have mentioned to you in the
past, I am not so convinced by some of Faurisson's other "evidences,"
like his misleading use of steam autoclaves and American (execution)
gas chambers to "disprove" Krema 1." By this last point I was
referring to Faurisson's standard introductory point when speaking of
Krema 1. I had the privilege (?) of producing a videotape of
Faurisson's "introduction to Holocaust revisionism," and, as I had
seen so many times before, he led off with this marvelous piece of
sleight of hand: He'll show a picture of an American execution gas
chamber, with its heavy round oval shaped door with a round
wheel-shaped handle, and its various exhaust pipers [sic] and other
gauges, and THEN he'll show a picture of a STEAM AUTOCLAVE at
Auschwitz, which he'll FRAUDULENTLY MISREPRESENT as a Zyklon B
delousing chamber and which _superficially resembles the execution
chamber_ with its oval shaped door, round wheel-shaped handle, and
various pipes and guages [sic]. He'll point out the resemblance, and
then he'll show a picture of KREMA 1, making his point by saying "you
see, this resembles neither the execution chamber nor the delousing
chamber - no heavy round metal door, no wheel-shaped handle. Why,
Krema 1 is just an ordinary room! It COULDN'T be a gas chamber
because it is not designed like the execution and delousing
chambers!"
With this piece of deception, Faurisson takes advantage of the
ignorance of his audience with the ease of an "exterminationist."
After all, who but a Holocaust scholar would know to point out that
the autoclave is for STEAM not Zyklon B, and that A) Zyklon B COULD
INDEED be used in rooms that were "just ordinary rooms," since Zyklon
was designed for fumigating ordinary rooms (see the DEGESCH Zykon
[sic] manual), and B) that many of the delousing rooms at
[p. 4]
Auschwitz and other camps WERE "just ordinary rooms." As I already
mentioned, several rooms in the Auschwitz Main Camp barracks were
"retrofitted" to be Zyklon B delousing rooms. Now, a Zyklon B
HOMICIDAL chamber could certainly be an "ordinary" room, PROVIDING
that the victims could not escape, that there was some way to
introduce the Zyklon into the room, and that there was some way to
ventilate the room afterwards. The temperature of the room would
heavily influence the speed with which the Zyklon evaporated.
Faurisson takes advantage of the irrelevant resemblance of the
execution chamber and the stream [sic] autoclave to fool his
audience. He is FORTUNATE that no "exterminationist" has ever been
interested enough in the forensic arguments of revisionists to
actually TEST these autoclaves for the Zyklon residue that Faurisson
must surely believe would be present. I would ask why FAURISSON has
never tested these autoclaves, as he seems so sure that Zyklon was
used in them (his trip to Auschwitz with Leuchter would have been the
perfect time for this).
Faurisson's "Krema 1 couldn't have been a gas chamber because it
doesn't resemble the American execution chambers or the German
autoclaves" argument relies on two pieces of trickery: 1) Faurisson
relies on the fact that most non-scholars won't know that the
autoclaves in question used STEAM not Zyklon B, and 2) Faurisson
knowingly misrepresents the type of rooms that were COMMONLY used as
Zyklon B delousing rooms. I'll quote Faurisson from his interview
with "Storia Illustrata" (August 1979; the interview was reprinted in
the IHR "Journal," Winter 1981) - and I'll add that this specious
argument had been ENDLESSLY repeated by Faurisson right up until the
present; indeed, Faurisson eagerly repeated it for the videotape I
shot in October '92. "Just a glance at one of these small gas
chambers (an American execution gas chamber), constructed in order to
kill a single condemned man, renders ridiculous those premises of
stone, wood, and plaster which are represented as being former German
'gas chambers.' If the American gas chambers are made exclusively of
steel and glass, then it is for reasons of good sense and for reasons
more specifically technical. The first reason is that the acid has a
tendency to adhere to the surface and even to penetrate certain
materials, so therefore it is necessary to avoid such materials. The
second reasons is that, when the ventilators empty the chamber of
air, there is a risk of implosion, so therefore the structure has
remarkably thick walls of steel and glass. The very heavy steel door
can only be closed with a handwheel."
IT IS PRECISELY BECAUSE THE GERMANS _DID NOT_ "AVOID" CERTAIN
MATERIALS THAT WE FIND DELOUSING ROOMS AT AUSCHWITZ MAIN CAMP,
BIRKENAU, MAJDANEK AND STUTTHOF THAT ARE COVERED IN BLUE STAINS. The
majority of delousing rooms at these camps are ordinary rooms made of
brick, mortar, stone, wood, and plaster. And Faurisson knows this
very well. Have revisionists been hallucinating all these years as
we've taken forensic samples of these materials from delousing rooms?
Faurisson is QUITE aware that the Germans had delousing rooms that
were made of materials to which the Zyklon B adhered and penetrated.
And these rooms saw a TREMENDOUS amount of usage (especially as
Auschwitz), but to my knowledge there was never an "implosion."
[p. 5]
From November '92 to February '93 Faurisson sent several faxes about
me and the "Piper" tape to a variety of revisionists. He also asked
that Bradley publish one of these faxes in "Smith's Report," which
Bradley agreed to do. One of his charges against me was that my
interview with Piper was irrelevant because he (Faurisson) had in
1976 obtained an unrecorded confession from Auschwitz State Museum
official Jan Machalek that the cremation ovens were not genuine. I
responded to Faurisson by telling him that the OVENS were not the
issue: My video had to do with the remodeling of the MORGUE ROOM, the
room said to be the "gas chamber." This was clear from everything
Bradley or I had ever written or said about the "Piper" take; the
ovens were never mentioned. That the ovens presently displayed are
not original is less of a concern because A) the museum personnel
explain that the ovens are not original, B) we know that there were
ovens in that room when the building was used as a crematorium, and
C) the ovens on display are similar to the ones that were once there.
I pointed out to Faurisson that my tape tackled a separate issue; the
remodeling of the morgue room. Well, sometime after Faurisson had
received my response, his fax started turning up again (it was
re-submitted to "Smith's Report" for publication AND sent via fax and
mail to more revisionists) WITH SEVERAL KEY WORDS CHANGED. Faurisson
had ALTERED his fax and CHANGED the story of his meeting with
Machalek, replacing the word "oven" with "gas chamber."
As Faurisson has done so many times with various Holocaust texts,
I'll compare and contrast the text of the two faxes:
Fax of November 9, 1992
"On April 23, 1975, Mr. Machalek, of the Auschwitz Museum, had to
confess that in Krema 1 the ovens were "reconstructed" (he said in
German: 'rekonstruiert'). First he had answered me that they were
genuine ('echt') but, when I showed him that there was no soot, he
said 'rekonstruiert.' Then I asked him: 'In conformity with the
original pattern?' He replied: 'Yes.'" This is where the story ends.
Nothing about gas chambers. In fact, the story about the soot and the
ovens is a standard Faurisson story. I'd heard him tell it many times
before.
Fax of January 9, 1993
NOW the story has changed; "ovens" have become "gas chambers" (in this
passage Faurisson refers to himself in the third person, as he does
several times in his various faxes): "It is in 1975 that R. Faurisson
forced a responsible of the Auschwitz State Museum, Jan Machalek, to
say that this so-called 'gas chamber' was not 'genuine' (in German:
'echt') but 'reconstructed' (in German: 'rekonstruiert').
Consequently, Faurisson asked 'reconstructed according to the
original plan?' and Machalek replied yes." Unless Faurisson is
suffering from the same confusion apparent in many non-scholars who
routinely confuse or conjoin the gas chambers and the crematorium
ovens (often referring to "gas ovens"), he knows very well that the
ovens and the gas chamber are two completely different things.
Faurisson altered his story to fit his attack against me.
[p. 6]
Faurisson's FIRST version is the same story he told at the first
Zundel trial in Ontario, Canada, February 4, 1985:
Faurisson: "I got first into the place called 'Krematorium.' There
were there two furnaces with two openings."
Doug Christie (Zundel's lawyer): "What did you do?"
Faurisson: "I noticed some things which were not normal."
Christie: "What did you notice? Tell us what you noticed."
Faurisson: "I noticed, for example, that there was no soot at all."
Christie: "How did you find that out?"
Faurisson: "Putting my finger like that, I saw that there was no
soot."
Christie: "Inside the furnace?"
Faurisson: "Yes."
Christie: "All right."
Faurisson: "So I decided to find the highest possible responsible..."
Christie: "Person."
Faurisson: "...person, of the Auschwitz Museum."
Christie: "And then what did you do?"
Faurisson: "I found that man called Jan Machalek. I asked him to come
on the spot. I asked him if those ovens were genuine or not."
Christie: "Yeah. Don't tell us what he said. What did you then ask
him for?"
Faurisson: "I can say that I showed all the same that there was no
soot?"
Christie: "Yes."
Faurisson: "Okay. The conclusion was that it was a reconstruction, a
rebuilding and no something genuine."
Every time I've heard Faurisson tells the Jan Machalek story, this is
the way I've heard him tell it. In fact, the "soot-less" finger story
is quite well known. But as I have just shown, Faurisson isn't above
altering his own texts if the situation requires, changing key words
in his November 14 fax to better facilitate his attack against my
"Piper" video.
[p. 7]
I bring this us because this is exactly the kind of thing that
Faurisson would criticize if done by an "exterminationist." And for
those of you who are thinking that I'm being too hard on Faurisson,
I'll remind you that it is and always has been FAURISSON who's taken
his problems with me public, never once giving me the chance to reply
or even asking for my side of things. And in the fact of this latest
Faurisson attack, his most widely distributed yet, (the Struthof
charge), I think people have a right to know the history behind this
recent offensive.
So now let's move on. When Ernst Zundel began making good use out of
the "Piper" tape (and making good use out of me at the same time, I
might add - something that is entirely my fault), Faurisson
(according to Zundel) threw a screaming fit because Zundel dared to
use my work instead of his - in fact, Faurisson threatened to give
Zundel the permanent silent treatment if he didn't re-edit the
"Piper" tape to reduce my present and increase Faurisson's, which
Zundel did! (Right or wrong, Bradley and I gave Zundel the rights to
use the Piper footage as he saw fit. As a result there are two
different versions of this tape floating about - mind and Zundel's.
This has caused some confusion; and once again, it's entirely my
fault). Faurisson's childish behavior was even more laughable because
it was predicated on the assumption that there was some kind of fight
over Zundel's affections! Hell; dealing with Zundel to such an extent
was a huge mistake on my part. If Faurisson WANTS Zundel he can HAVE
him!
Faurisson has burdened Bradley Smith and Dr. Robert Countess with
this childish feud, sending numerous angry faxes to Bradley and once
(the day after the 12th IHR conference) demanding that Bradley
"summon" me to IHR headquarters so that I could be lectured to by
Faurisson about who's boss in the revisionist jungle. Faurisson has
never had the guys to make such phone calls himself. He likewise had
poor Dr. Countess call me to pass on Faurisson's insulting comments -
all the while as Faurisson sat in Dr. Countess' living room making
sure he said the right things! Faurisson's a grown man; if he has a
problem with me, he can tell me so himself. He has my phone and fax
number, and we've been together in the same room many times.
But Faurisson has never expressed any criticisms of my factual
arguments. His complaints are always that I am "needlessly" examining
something about which Faurisson has already rendered "final" judgment
(this couldn't be more like an "exterminationist": indeed, Faurisson
has repeatedly claims - as in his recent IHR conference speech - that
the time for investigating is over. The answers - Faurisson's answers
- are all final. Shades of Lipstadt. I would counter that the search
for answers has barely begun), or that I am part of some great Jewish
"conspiracy." This "conspiracy" claim has recently become his
favorite. He has lent his name to a Willis Carto pamphlet (Carto, of
course, now claims that the entire IHR is run by the ADL) stating
that I am a Jewish agent whose motives are not to be trusted. This
pamphlet was passed out in one form by Carto supporters at the 12th
IHR conference last year, and was reproduced in another form in the
"Spotlight."
Amazingly, while I was in France last year Faurisson called all or
most of the French revisionists and told them to avoid me at ALL
costs, NOT to talk to me, NOT to meet me, NOT to be interviewed by me
- because I am a "Jewish spy" working in cahoots with the French
government to entrap and jail French revisionists! (Tristan Mordrel
informed me of Faurisson's actions).
[p. 8]
For a man who has perhaps the world's most demanding definition of
"proof" when it comes to homicidal gas chambers, I would ask
Faurisson just what proof does he have that I am a "spy" for anybody?
He's NEVER offered anything resembling evidence. But Faurisson's
charges aren't based on any evidence; they're utilitarian in nature -
Faurisson doesn't like me, so he fabricates a "Jewish spy" story
because I'm Jewish. At this point it would be easy to charge
Faurisson with "anti-Semitism," but I think that's a cop-out.
Faurisson has acted in a similarly childish fashion against OTHER
revisionists, non [sic] of whom are Jewish. Usually, Faurisson feuds
with people who disagree with him. I can specifically point to the
example of Fritz Berg, who was blackballed from the 12th IHR
conference by Faurisson, who gave Mark Weber an "either Fritz goes or
I go" ultimatum. Fritz was only restored to the roster after an 11th
hour intervention by Andrew Allen (I hate to say it, but I think
Mark's decision to let Fritz back in was due more to the crisis that
resulted from a rash of speaker-cancellations. I think Mark needed
speakers, and this time Faurisson would just have to give in). To
hear Fritz tell it, Faurisson has been hard at work keeping Fritz'
articles out of revisionist publications. And Fritz' crime? He dares
to point out some of Faurisson's factual errors.
So now we come to the Struthof matter. When I returned from my "good
news/bad news" trip to Europe last year (good news for me; I got more
research done than ever before. Bad news for Bradley; no footage for
any new videos. Good news for me; I no longer had any interest in
doing videos for Bradley or anyone else - as Bradley can confirm)
Bradley asked me to recount the details of the robbery at the
Struthof camp. I did, and Bradley wrote of the details in his
"Smith's Report." And once that issue of "Smith's Report" hit the
stands, so to speak, guess who Bradley heard from via fax? It was
Robert Faurisson with yet another conspiracy charge! But this one was
quite unlike the fairly tame letter from Henri Roques; Faurisson
charged that the robbery story was a figment of my Jewish
imagination. I had "survivor" envy. Being a Jew, I had a fantasy
about being violated in some way while being in a "gas chamber," so I
invented the story in order to now be able to call myself a gas
chamber "survivor," and hit up the gullible goyim for money. You see,
when inventing my story dealing with the theft from my rental car, I
chose as the location of my rental car the area outside the gas
chamber because it resembled the "Birkenau 'Rampe'" - this way I
could re-enact the stories of Nazi guards abusing Jews by "seizing
all their belongings that had been left, on the Birkenau 'Rampe,' in
railway cars or in lorries." What a brilliant interpretation! "I
leave it to psychanalysts (sic) to study such an invention coming
from a Jew" he wrote. "I do not wish to see anyone judaizing (sic)
revisionism by putting in it Jewish stories." Faurisson claimed that
Roques supported this theory.
Faurisson went on to say that my motive for coming up with this story
was money. The fact that only one paragraph earlier he'd written that
my motive was a sick need to emulate a gas chamber victim didn't seem
to bother him at all. Why not have TWO motives?! That can only help
the theory. So Faurisson says that my gameplan was to fake a robbery
story in order to make money: "(Cole) gets out of the Struthof 'gas
chamber' as a survivor and then makes publicity and money out of his
extraordinary adventure...." But Faurisson is wise to me; "It looks
like the usual phantasmagoria and the usual Shoah-business."
[p. 9]
Damn...And I've have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that
intrepid Frenchman!
Bradley told Faurisson that he wanted something published in "SR," it
would have to be 1) less insulting, and 2) written by someone who was
actually there at Struthof with me.
But what Faurisson initially sent to meet this standard was NOT a
text written by someone who was present (Roques), but a "digest" of
Monsieur Roques' views, still written by Faurisson. But this version,
the "digest" version as we shall call it, differed considerably from
Faurisson's "Jewish Holocauat [sic] survivor envy" version. NOW the
robbery wasn't entirely dismissed as a figment of my Jewish
imagination...and NOW the motive of "money" was absent, replaced by a
NEW motivating factor, "carelessness(?)." Faurisson concludes the
"digest" version by writing that "Mr. and Mrs. Roques think" that I
am trying to implicate the guards to cover up my own "carelessness."
But what carelessness is Faurisson referring to? He never explains.
He just makes the charge, in the name of Henri Roques and his wife,
and then he lets it drop. I'm not sure what I did that was "careless"
(in fact, I'm much more culpable of "carelessness" in MY version of
events at Struthof, giving my name and other information to the camp
officials, then allowing my car to be out of my sight in the presence
of one of the guards), but then Faurisson doesn't seem to be fond of
such petty details. This "digest" version is indeed less insulting
than the "Holocaust survivor envy" version, but since Bradley's
insistence was on a version AUTHORED by someone present at Struthof,
a NEW version was required.
So Faurisson sent another letter, this one signed "Henri Roques," You
see, as Faurisson told Bradley, Roques doesn't write English (quite
true) so Faurisson had to actually write this letter, even though it
is a translation of Roques' views. I don't doubt this, by the way,
but I feel sure that, where he in _my_ shoes, Faurisson (being the
scrupulous "document-criticizer" that he is) would surely balk at
having never seen the Roques French-language original! (Just kidding;
I'll gladly accept Faurisson's translation as being accurate)
But Roques gives a slightly different line than Faurisson. Perhaps
because he is aware that there was a police investigation into the
robbery, Roques doesn't want the dismiss the entire thing as a
product of my Jewish noggin. Or maybe Roques isn't quite audacious
enough to dismiss the whole story as "survivor envy." And any talk of
Faurisson's claim that I am attempting to extort money from the
revisionist community is likewise absent. But where's the charge of
"carelessness"? Gone, along with any speculation about motive. We've
seen a steady change in the conspiracy theory, from "malice" (the
"survivor envy" and "extortion" angle of the "extreme" version), to
"negligence" (the "carelessness [sic] charge in the "digest"
version), to the lack of motive speculation in the "Roques" version.
So what we get from Roques (by way of Faurisson) is a somewhat
wishy-washy letter compared to Faurisson's fiery attack against me as
a Jew. his [sic] charge of extortion, and his ambiguous charge that I
am trying to cover up some sort of "carelessness." So what can I say
in response to M. Roques? In a way, I'd prefer not to reply at all
(I'll come back to this later).
[p. 10]
I'm not going to be a hypocrite; I question eyewitness testimony all
the time, so I'm not going to make a fuss if people don't believe my
version of events. I have a police report, but it consists only of
what I (and my camerawoman) told the gendarmes, who refused to
question any other parties. So if the police report supports my
version, it's still not really proof of anything. I have the support
of my camerawoman, but then wouldn't she naturally support my side,
being my friend? (For the record, she's not Jewish. In fact, she's
German - but what does THAT prove? Just another case of a Jew
dominating a German, right?!) All the same, there are a few points
worth making:
Pierre Guillaume is himself at odds with Roques over the number of
guards. I clearly remember the second guard staying. My camerawoman
and I left the gas chamber while everyone else was still inside (we
wanted to get an early start to Paris). After walking to the car and
seeing the results of the theft, I ran back toward the gas chamber to
tell everyone else. It was here that I saw the second guard still
standing around outside the chamber. This is the main reason that I
can't help but believe that the guards were involved: There is simply
NO WAY that the second guard could have been outside the gas chamber
and NOT witnessed the break in. It's very important to understand the
surroundings. The gas chamber building is located about five minutes
AWAY from the Struthof camp. And the gas chamber is closed to ALL
TOURISTS. The camp and the chamber are both located at the top of a
mountain, and hour away from Strasbourg. The day of my visit the
temperature was freezing, and the high altitude of the mountain made
it unbearable to be outside. This is easily provable via the footage
I took at the camp; everyone is bitching about the cold, and as
Tristan Mordrel and I are huddled together in a phone booth, calling
the Struthof camp officials (who have offices in Strasbourg, NOT on
the Struthof grounds), Pierre Guillaume and my camerawoman are
huddled together in the public urinal...ANYWHERE to escape the cold!
Struthof is not a well-traveled camp in the best of times...but on
THAT day, it was practically deserted (exacerbated by the fact that I
was there the one day of the week that the nearly restaurant is
closed). There is only ONE ROAD leading to the gas chamber. ANYONE
standing outside or sitting in a car (it is possible that the second
guard might have been sitting in his car because of the cold) would
certainly see ANYONE coming down the road.
Roques' idea that the bags were taken but not the camera equipment
because "it is easier to get away with bags than with a tripod"
("easier to get away with bags than with some camera equipment" -
"digest" version) suggests that the thieves had to CARRY the booty -
whereas we all agreed at the time that the thieves had to have
DRIVEN. Would Roques suggest that the thieves HIKED up the mountain
on foot, in freezing temperatures, in the hopes of finding the rental
cars of tourists who would be sequestered in the gas chamber building
- even though this building is barred to ALL tourists at ALL times -
and, amazed at their incredible luck of having hiked up the mountain
just to arrive at the gas chamber THE ONE TIME there are actually
tourists in it, LOADED themselves down with bags, then hiked BACK
down the mountain again carrying four heavy bags? No offense to M.
Roques, but this is one thesis definitely NOT worthy of a doctorate.
We not only all agreed that the thieves had to have driven down the
road to the gas chamber building, but in fact M. Mordrel, my
camerawoman, and I IMMEDIATELY drove down the road in the vain hope
of catching up to the car of the thief or thieves. And, as M. Mordrel
[p. 11]
accompanied me and my camerawoman to the nearest police station,
Pierre Guillaume AND M. Roques and his wife drove up and down the
mountain road looking for anything that might have been tossed out of
a car window.
And when I say those bags were "heavy," I mean HEAVY. One bag had,
mixed in among papers, notebooks, and other stuff, the TOOLS I used
to obtain certain forensic samples from certain camps. These tools
included about five chisels, two hammers, two mallets, picks, and
stud detector. Anyone who's ever done any location videotaping knows
the necessity for camera batteries. I had brought twenty batteries
with me on the trip. At the time of the robbery, I had two of them
with me in the gas chamber, eight were lying on the back seat of the
car (among the camera equipment that wasn't stolen), and ten were
mixed in with another bag, making THAT bad extremely heavy, too.
Hiking down the mountain loaded with all that stuff would've been
quite an ordeal...but as I've said, the notion that the robbers were
on foot was the furthest thing from ANYONE'S mind at the time. If we
HAD thought of that, we surely would have proceeded after the robbers
on foot (after all, we had only been in the chamber a short while,
and the robbers were weighed, down [sic] so how far could they have
gotten?) instead of driving down the mountain road after their car,
as we did. I would suggest that Monsieur Roques is advancing the
"robbers were on foot" theory because he understand that there WAS a
second guard outside the chamber the whole time...and it is easier to
suggest that this second guard was innocently aware of the thief
(thieves?) if the thief was on foot, perhaps crawling through the
tall grass like a snake. There is no way to excuse the second guard
if the thieves drove, because the second guard could not have missed
the car coming down the single access road to the gas chamber.
I'm not trying to say that I know for certain what happened; I've
NEVER asserted that I know for certain. But I AM saying that I
believe I had good reason to advance the theory of the guards'
involvement (good reason that did not include extortion, survivor
hallucinations, or a "carelessness coverup").
The notion that this all might have been an "anti-revisionist
operation" was initially Mordrel's, and even Roques admits that he
initially had the same idea. Mordrel's argument against this theory,
voiced later, was that if MY car was broken into, why not also Pierre
Guillaume's car and the Roques' car? They are even more infamous in
France and would be tantalizing targets for any anti-revisionist
plot. Agreed. But what we would later realize is that only MY
presence had been announced to the guards and camp officials. I had
to negotiate with the Director and Curator of the Struthof Museum in
order to get my gas chamber tour. I presented my I.D., and it was
arranged for me to come back (perhaps giving the officials time to
check my credentials? I don't know) and get a personal tour under the
supervision of the guards. No one knew that Roques or Guillaume would
be present, and they made their presence known to no one.
But as to whether or not the theft was directed against me AS A
REVISIONIST, I cannot say. I have always advocated another
possibility: The guards knew that a Jewish American tourist was to
get a personal tour. Forgive me for dealing in stereotypes, but such
a tourist would most certainly appear to be a good target for a
robbery. That civil servants like these guards might have seen this
opportunity is by no means out of the question; indeed, it is
[p. 12]
standard police procedure to at least entertain the idea of an inside
job during most robberies, mainly because these inside jobs are not
at all uncommon. And adding the facts that the second guard would
have had to have seen a car come down the road, and that the thieves
happened to come by the gas chamber - a building that anyone
acquainted with the area understands is NEVER open to tourists - just
at the time that we were all inside, I think it is not unreasonable
to entertain the notion of an inside job. In fact, it is a notion
that I strongly suspect to be true.
Whether the robbery was for money or for some other purpose is
presently not knowable.
By the way, I based my claim that Madam Roques had her purse in her
car on the statement of M. Mordrel, who told me that it was odd that
no other cars were broken into because Pierre had his "briefcase" in
his car, and Madam Roques had her "bag" in her car. If I
misunderstood "bag" to be "purse" I'm sorry. Perhaps it was a
different type of bag. It was Mordrel who first pointed out how it
was "very strange" that the things left in the other cars were not
taken. But even this does not necessarily point to me being singled
out because I had been fingered as a revisionist. Tourists are
usually preferred by criminals for a variety of reasons (including
the fact that they usually don't stick around too long to pursue a
lengthy investigation).
Also for the record, I'll mention that as far as Faurisson's claim
that my motive for staging this "hoax" was money, Bradley can attest
to the fact that I am no longer interested in selling products
through revisionist circles (in fact it has been - and still is -
BRADLEY who so dearly wants more video). In exchange for the fact
that there would be no video coming out of this last Europe trip, I
gladly absorbed the huge cost overrun caused by the robbery and
several other unforeseen calamities. Although Bradley has offered to
help defray these costs with money from our "D&B Productions"
account, I have still refused to bill him. The total of these costs,
NOT INCLUDING MEALS (which I have never bothered to tally) is
approximately $5,500.00. Add to that the $4,000.00 that I reimbursed
my camerawoman because of her losses due to the robbery (her actual
losses came to about $200.00. The rest was "guilt money" - money to
alleviate my guilt because many of the things she lost had great
emotional value), and you get almost $10,000 in expenses that I'm
covering. Revisionism for me has never been for profit. I take it for
granted that revisionism COSTS money...only a fool EXPECTS money from
all this.
Bradley conducted a video interview with me, where I recounted the
details of the robbery, as a means of explaining to his closest
supporters just what happened on my trip. The video was Bradley's
idea; in fact he made me do the same thing after my '92 trip - and I
say "made" because getting me to sit still for one of these pointless
exercises is like pulling teeth - just ask Bradley. The video from my
'92 trip has never been sold, just given free to Bradley's closest
supporters. The video of my last trip, which is hardly designed as a
salable product as it has no titles and is completely unedited (it's
exactly what was shot, frequent stoppages and all), was also given
free to Bradley's closest supporters. I have not made one cent out of
it, and, if you want to be precise, I've lost a few dollars if you
count the Hi8 videotape of the master and the VHS copy for Bradley.
[p. 13]
Forgive me for bringing this "money" issue up...but I felt a need to
respond to Faurisson's charge.
If you've been paying attention you'll remember that there are THREE
versions of this Struthof charge going around (the "extreme" version,
the "digest" version, and the "Roques" version). I don't know which
one Faurisson presently believe in, but I DO know that he is sending
around all three versions, though to my knowledge no one person has
received all three (Faurisson seems to choose a version for each
recipient, and his decision-making process is a mystery to me: a
certain left-leaning revisionist has been sent the "extreme"
survivor-envy version, and a "racialist" publication has been sent
the milder "Roques" one. To me, this seems backwards).
And that, as they say, is that...at least as far as this latest
Faurisson charge goes. Now, I said earlier that I might have
preferred not answering this charge at all. My way of looking at it
is this; if Faurisson's charge helps disentangle me (and my
not-so-good name) from the racist/anti-Semitic/neo-Nazi far right, if
these folks stop trumpeting me and my work out of a believe in
Faurisson's charge that I'm a money-grubbing spy, then my life will
become a whole lot easier. The fact that I've received a lot of play
in the far-right press is very much my own fault; I'm not blaming
anybody else. All the same, though, I've never been pleased with the
situation I found myself in. Each time I stressed my opposition to
racism or Nazism, each time I stressed that my revisionist views were
the product of intellectual curiosity and not pro-fascism, I was
embraced even closer by the far-right because, after all, who better
to have as an ally than someone from the opposing camp? And those
far-rightists who did level charges against me of "Jewish spy" were
always too small to be taken seriously be [sic] the far-right
community in general.
But now that Robert Faurisson is going public with his conspiracy
theory, perhaps now people will start to listen. Maybe now certain
far-rightists will not be so quick to broadcast my videos or write
glowing articles about me, out of a fear that they will be accused of
helping me in my conspiratorial shenanigans! I say, let Faurisson be
heard by all! Those who will believe his charges are, almost by
definition, just the kind of people I DON'T want calling me,
supporting me, or promoting me.
In fact, my recent debate with Faurisson over the Struthof gas
chamber has started to produce just such a deteriorating effect among
my (ahem) "supporters." For the uninitiated, after I returned from
Europe last year Faurisson sent yet ANOTHER fax to Bradley, this time
repeating the charge he made after the "Piper" video. David Cole did
not have to go to Struthof, he wrote, because Faurisson had already
solved that question once and for all: There is no Struthof homicidal
gas chamber! No need for any more research. Faurisson has spoken.
Well, in reality Faurisson has benefited from the fact that the
Struthof camp officials keep that gas chamber building closed off to
everyone. For decades we had to rely on his description of that
building. That was one reason I fought so hard to see it for myself.
And it was by no means a surprise to me when, after seeing the
building for myself, I realized that Faurisson has been
misrepresenting it for years. So I answered Faurisson's "there is no
more problem with the Struthof 'gas chamber'" charge with a lengthy
response in "Smith's Report," in which I not only criticized
Faurisson's methodology
[p. 14]
but I ALSO made the claim that I think there is a very high
probability, based on my own strict standard of documentary evidence,
that the Struthof gas chamber was indeed used to kill Jews (and even
if I am wrong in my belief about the high probability of homicidal
gassings in this building, I feel that my points about Faurisson's
many MISREPRESENTATIONS about the Struthof gas chamber are airtight,
since all I did was compare and contrast various contradictory
Faurisson texts).
And you should hear the fallout since my "Smith's Report" article
about Struthof and Faurisson! Nasty letters to me from my former
(huh, huh) "supporters," and nasty letters to Bradley Smith for
publishing my article. In fact, several supporters have apparently
abandoned Bradley entirely! It is with great humor and no sadness
that I observe how folks who only months earlier were giving me
ridiculous praise as a "great man" are now giving me equally
ridiculous scorn for being a "turncoat" now that I've dared to stray
from the standard dogma. What happened, guys? Where'd my "greatness"
go? Two years ago you were ready to carve my likeness on Mount
Rushmore (or should that be Stone Mountain?), and now I'm persona non
grata. And while I'm thankful for the diminishing support, I'm truly
perplexed by the SURPRISE that some of you are showing about my
Struthof statements. Stop acting like you've been hustled, guys. From
day one I made it clear that I'm a leftist, race-mixing, atheistic
Jew who has no allegiance to any dogma and who'd gladly agree that
there were gas chambers if only the proof could be found. It's not my
fault if some of you thought that I was only saying those things to
fool the public and that privately I was "one of you." I was in fact
being completely truthful (look, I'm as skeptical as the next guy but
take my word for it, you CAN believe SOME things you read). I was
NEVER "one of you." I never sought to be a "movement" guy. And I
never sought to mislead. Keep that in mind before any of you penalize
poor Bradley any further.
While brings me (finally!) to my last point - and it's probably the
most important point I'll make. After Bradley published my Struthof
gas chamber article, he gave Faurisson an April 20 deadline to send a
response. That was a month and a half ago, and as of yesterday (April
20) Faurisson has failed to send ANY response. Perhaps Faurisson
doesn't realize this, but there are many revisionists who are waiting
with baited breath [sic] for the great Faurisson to demolish that SOB
Cole. Everyone should be made aware that Faurisson has thus far
failed to respond. And what HAS Faurisson done? He's sent copies of
the Cole conspiracy theory letter to any and every revisionist or
right-wing publication whose address or fax number he has. And he
still wants Bradley to publish the charge in "Smith's Report" (which
Bradley will do). You see, THAT'S Faurisson's response to my Struthof
gas chamber article; to attack me personally. He's refused to address
any of my points about the Struthof gas chamber. Once again, he's
taken a page out of the "exterminationist" book by responding to
factual points with personal attacks. He's refused to send Bradley
any response to my Struthof article (even though Bradley has asked
several times since initially giving Faurisson the April 20
deadline). In fact, Faurisson has failed to respond to my Struthof
gas chamber article, even after the April 20 deadline. Bradley was
confused, but I reminded him that Faurisson's "response" to Fritz
Berg's points about Zyklon B was to try to "blackball" Fritz, so I
assured Bradley that there was nothing new about Faurisson's tactics
here. But Faurisson is highly, and humorously, mistaken if he thinks
he's "harming" me by trying to get be blackballed by the far
[p. 15]
right. In fact Faurisson's timing couldn't be more impeccable. And
while Faurisson may be doing me a favor by helping to end the
far-right's fascination with me, I certainly hope that all the
revisionists who idolize Faurisson to the point of taking his claims
on faith and as gospel will not allow it to go unnoticed that
Faurisson has taken this route for his "response." Is this the
behavior one expects from a revisionist? It is certainly the behavior
one would expect from Deborah Lipstadt.
While some revisionist stress "movement unity" (whatever that means)
above all else, there are others who are becoming alarmed (and with
good reason) at the personality cult that is developing around some
revisionists (to those of you who have said that I am too "hard" on
Faurisson, I will remind you that I speak of him with no less
severity than I do various "exterminations." I won't go easy on
Faurisson just because we happen to hold similar opinions about some
things). And while Faurisson is calling for an end to research (note
his last conference speech), I wish to ceaselessly prod him (and
others) with those things that I believe revisionists have yet to
adequately explain (the same way I'll never let up about the things
that the "exterminationists" have failed to adequately explain).
As an example, I'll point specifically to Faurisson's response to
David Irving's "Journal of Historical Review" essay/conference speech
on the Goebbels diary, appearing in the letters section of the
current "Journal of Historical Review" (March/April '95). Faurisson
quotes from the March 27, 1942 Goebbels diary entry, and then writes
"In itself, this last sentence ("Broadly speaking, one can probably
say that 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated, while only 40
percent can be put to work" - Goebbels) tends to show that the Reich
Minister of Propaganda did not know for sure that there was a German
policy to physically exterminate the Jews, either totally or in
part."
"IN PART?" What does he think Goebbels is referring to, if not a
liquidation IN PART. Faurisson is pulling an old "exterminationist"
trick here by quoting a passage and then TELLING us what we've just
read, hoping we won't notice any incongruity between the passage and
Faurisson's explanation. Faurisson is quoting a passage that speaks
of exterminations in part - AT LEAST in part, and then he TELLS us
that we in fact HAVEN'T just read what we've read - with no
explanation given to clarify why Goebbels isn't actually saying what
he so clearly seems to be saying. I think Faurisson has grown too
used to having his word taken as gospel. Naked emperors don't only
exist on the "exterminationist" side. Faurisson's description of the
March 27 Goebbels diary entry reminds me of page 120 of dear old Mel
Mermelstein's book, where he shows a picture of Krema 1 and writes in
the caption "note the pipes and shower heads above").
The importance (to me of this Goebbels diary passage is that for the
first time we have a reliable piece of evidence which points to a
plan of separation between those Jews fit for "labor" and the rest,
who "have to be liquidated." Hate it though some of us may, this fits
the "exterminationist" model much better than it does the revisionist
one. If revisionists wish to explain this passage some other way,
they'll have to do better than the explanation offered by Faurisson.
For myself, I can say that the meaning of this Goebbels diary
passage, IN RELATION to events occurring at that time, has yet to be
adequately explained by any revisionist.
[p. 16]
And Faurisson's explanation of the "Jew transport from Berlin. No
liquidation" Himmler note is similarly thin. He neglects to take into
account that this entire transport WAS liquidated, in toto. If "no
liquidation" meant "no individuals in this transport are scheduled
for execution," and if this was the policy (to inform Heydrich of any
individuals on each transport who might be scheduled for executions),
then why was the entire transport liquidated? It seems to me that a
better explanation is that these Jews were being sent to an area
where liquidations of Jews were taking place, and for whatever reason
(and this is something that the "exterminationists" have yet to
explain) Hitler and/or Himmler decided that this transport should be
exempted. But it was too late. If Faurisson wishes to support his
version, I'd ask him if there are any other notes from Himmler to
Heydrich, or records of any conversations between the two men, about
individuals in any of these transports who were scheduled for
execution upon arrival. In other words, if it was commonplace for
Himmler to alert Heydrich of any individuals in these transports who
were scheduled to be executed, then there should be records of these
orders (i.e. "Jew transport from Berlin. Five liquidations." "Jew
transport from Berlin. Twenty liquidations." "Jew transport from
Berlin. No liquidations." etc. etc.). I'm not asking rhetorically;
I'm genuinely curious.
I'll apologize again for the length of this response...but I wanted
to take the time to be specific about my problems with Faurisson, not
only because these problems may give you some insight about his
current mail/fax campaign against me, but also because I think that
the points I've made about Faurisson's scholarship are as relevant
now as they've ever been.
Allright [sic], enough already. I've done 16 pages on this Faurisson
business, and if you're as sick of reading this as I am of writing
it, then I'd better stop right now!
--
Jamie McCarthy k044477@kzoo.edu jrm0@aol.com
http://www.kzoo.edu/~k044477/ I speak only for myself.
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[ people/c/cole.david ]
The Nizkor Project
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HTML: Jamie McCarthy
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November 22, 1997