Friday 3 May 2013

HOLOCAUST HISTORY DENIAL: A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

 
"The sacred shibboleths ~ six million dead, cyanide gas chambers, and a pre-planned total extermination ~ are the new holy trinity."

by Kevin Barrett
May 1, 2013

I used to believe in “the Holocaust.” 

Not as a religion ~ I’ve never been to any of the museum-temples or made a pilgrimage to Auschwitz or pored over the sacred texts. And I never was stupid or crazy enough to accept the Holocaust as a valid excuse for the Zionist theft of Palestine.  (If the Holocaust had anything to do with Israel, then Israel would have been established in Germany ~ not Palestine.)
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In short, I believed in “the Holocaust” as history, because I assumed that 99% of Western academic historians can’t be wrong.
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I assumed that about six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in concentration camps, mostly in gas chambers, as part of a pre-planned effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. As far as I knew, all of the reputable historians believed this. The handful of dissenters, I assumed, were cranks of one sort or another. And though I had met many Muslim academic colleagues who were Holocaust skeptics, I thought they were probably biased due to their anti-Zionism.
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Then in 2006, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, I was attacked on Wikipedia as a “holocaust denier.” In fact, I was a well-known skeptic about 9/11 ~ not the Holocaust. I knew next to nothing about the controversies surrounding the alleged gas chambers.
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Wikipedia claimed I was a supporter of David Irving, Mark Green, and Ernst Zundel. In fact, I had never heard of Green, and barely even knew the names of Irving and Zundel.  (I had spent most of the 1990s reading every French literary classic for my French Literature MA, then learning Arabic and studying Islam and Morocco for my PhD. while supporting my wife and two small children, so I wasn’t really paying attention to Holocaust-controversy news.)
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I tried to correct the erroneous information ~ which came from some crank’s personal website, and had never been checked, much less corroborated ~ along with the dozens of other derogatory factual errors, on my Wikipedia page. The corrections would always be removed, and the lies, reinstated, by the next day. Sometimes it happened in a matter of hours.
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This was enough to make me slightly paranoid.
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But as the hippies used to say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Somebody was trying to frame me as a “Holocaust denier” ~ presumably to damage my credibility on 9/11. Why would they do that?

By 2010 or so, I finally got around to reading a few books about the Holocaust controversies. The first book I read was Denying History by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman. It had been recommended as the best introduction to why the Holocaust deniers are wrong.
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Denying History blew my mind ~ but not in the way its authors presumably intended. It consists mostly of weak ad-hominem attacks against “Holocaust deniers.” Its arguments about the actual issues ~ the questions of pre-planned total extermination, cyanide gas chambers, and six million Jewish victims (or was that six million total victims?) ~ were not nearly as strong as I had expected. In fact, they were surprisingly flimsy.


Shermer and Grobman admit that the keepers of the Auschwitz memorial suddenly decided, one day in 1989, to reduce the number of victims of that notorious camp from 4 million to “about one and one half million.” That is a lot of victims to vanish so suddenly.

Shermer and Grobman claim that the suddenly-missing 2 1/2 million Auschwitz victims somehow magically re-appeared on the Eastern Front, where they turned out to have been shot down by German firing squads. This maneuver preserves the seemingly magical “six million” figure. 

But it raises some obvious questions about the reliability of the death counts. 

First, isn’t the mathematics of “subtract-two-and-one-half-million here, add two-and-one-half-million there” just a bit too convenient?  

Second, what about the forensic evidence? How can the remains of 2 1/2 million human cadavers have suddenly moved from Auschwitz to the Eastern Front?

And third ~ if the orthodox Holocaust historians were that wrong about Auschwitz prior to 1989, what else might they be wrong about?

Shermer and Grobman downplay the issue of forensic evidence ~ because, it seems, there really isn’t a whole lot. Millions of people seem to have vanished without a trace. Instead, orthodox Holocaust historians rely on eyewitness accounts, not forensics, to establish the existence of mass-execution cyanide gas chambers and six million dead bodies. They say the bodies and skeletons were almost completely burned, so little or nothing remained. No point in looking for millions of bodies, you won’t find nearly enough.
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On that point, the skeptics and the orthodox historians agree.
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Denying History raised questions in my mind about the truth of what I had previously believed. It also, paradoxically, evoked my sympathy for the people the authors wanted me to despise. Just about all of them seemed like reasonably nice people. 
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David Irving, Shermer and Grobman admitted, was a highly-qualified and accomplished historian who had suffered greatly, and even been imprisoned, for his sincerely-held scholarly opinions. 



David Cole, a young Jewish man led to “Holocaust denial” by his penchant for truth, had won a debate against the pro-Orthodoxy forces, including Shermer himself, on the Phil Donahue Show. 
The only way the forces of orthodoxy could win their debate with David Cole, it turned out, was by issuing death threats to terrify him into recanting.

Shermer and Grobham made me like David Cole, feel sorry for him, and despise the JDL terrorists who threatened to kill him if he didn’t pretend to agree with them.
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Since Shermer and Grobman were such poor defenders of orthodoxy, I turned to Deborah Lipstadt, who had won a libel suit filed against her by David Irving. I assumed that anyone who could beat Irving in a history debate must have a rock-solid command of the facts. Her book Denying the Holocaust, I assumed, would put the deniers’ arguments to rest.

 


As I turned the pages of Denying the Holocaust, my astonishment gradually turned to fury. The book has nothing to do with history. It is one long hysterical polemic in favor of the author’s utterly unexamined a priori belief system. Lipstadt’s book consists of 100% emotion, zero percent rational-empirical argument about historical fact. It is basically an endless chain of mindless ad-hominem insults against the “holocaust deniers.”
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If this was the best the defenders of Holocaust orthodoxy could do, maybe they didn’t have quite the airtight argument that I had assumed.
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At this point, my faith in Holocaust orthodoxy was somewhat shaken.
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Then one of my 9/11-skeptic acquaintances told me I should read Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides by Thomas Dalton. I did ~ and found it was far better than the books by Shermer/Grobman and Lipstadt. Of course, it wasn’t really as neutral as the title sounded. Dalton obviously believed the holocaust skeptics had a better case than the keepers of orthodoxy. But at least he did try to elucidate the historical arguments, point by point. Though he did not convince me that the Holocaust skeptics were right, he successfully argued that the Holocaust controversy was a legitimate topic of historical debate.
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I invited Dalton to join me on the radio to debate two defenders of orthodoxy, Roberto Muehlenkamp and Andrew Mathis, on my radio show. (Read about the show here, and listen at http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Truth-Jihad-32k-042410.mp3 ).
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Then I met Nick Kollerstrom, author of the best book on 7/7, Terror on the Tube. Dr. Kollerstrom, a Ph.D. History of Science chemistry specialist, was expelled from his teaching post at University College of London simply for publishing a scholarly article evaluating the chemical evidence for the existence of homicidal gas chambers during World War II. Those who expelled him threw in gratuitous insults, but refused to make any effort to dispute the facts as laid out in the offending article.
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I got to know Nick, rambled all over London with him, and found I liked him and respected his intellect. His views were legitimate scholarly interpretations, not bigotry.
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These experiences have led me to conclude that the problem isn’t Holocaust denial ~ it’s Holocaust history denial (HHD). People like Deborah Lipstadt, and the other keepers of Holocaust orthodoxy, irrationally deny that the Holocaust is history, and therefore open to free and fearless rational-empirical debate. For them, the Holocaust is emotion-saturated sacred myth, not history.
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Western culture ~ not just a few keepers of orthodoxy ~ is suffering from HHD
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Everywhere you go, it is denied that the Holocaust is just one unfortunate historical episode among others, and that the data can be interpreted and reinterpreted in a wide variety of ways.
The sacred shibboleths ~ six million dead, cyanide gas chambers, and a pre-planned total extermination ~ are the new holy trinity. Anybody who doubts them isn’t just another revisionist historian, but a heretic.
And the heretics are sent to prison, or have their careers destroyed, simply for writing or speaking about their interpretations of historical data.
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Nick Kollerstrom tells me that many thousands of people have been prosecuted, in Germany alone, under the “political correctness” laws. How can anyone possibly be a historian in a society that imprisons people for expressing their interpretations of history?
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Holocaust history denial is a clear and present danger. The Western tradition of freedom of inquiry is under threat. Ever since Socrates founded philosophy, acerbic skepticism about “public myths” has been central to Western thought. Today, it can get you thrown in prison or ejected from your job.
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It’s time to meet the threat of Holocaust history denial head-on. Let’s re-historicize the Holocaust, and put an end to the Holocaust Religion!
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I propose that America’s top fraud investigators should be immediately assigned to the Holocaust survivors’ fraud beat. The recent discover of $42 million in phony “survivor” claims is undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg; billions more are there for the taking. 

 

The money recovered from the “no business like Shoah business” shysters should be applied to the endowment of Holocaust Revisionism chairs in a dozen or so of our leading universities. There, the world’s top Holocaust revisionists should be turned loose to develop their very best historical arguments. A lively scholarly historical debate between the revisionists and the defenders of orthodoxy would ensue.
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Who would win the debate? 
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I have no idea. Maybe, with the debate reinvigorated, the orthodox camp would find the motivation to go out and look for the long-lost forensic evidence, including the ruins of actual mass-human-extermination gas chambers and the remains of millions of victims’ bodies. Or maybe the revisionists, given a modicum of legitimacy and funding, would definitively prove their case.

9 comments:

  1. Hundreds of pounds of explosives stolen from Montana bunker

    RED LODGE - About 559 pounds of explosives were stolen from a bunker near Red Lodge.

    Now, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) are asking for the public's help in the case.


    http://montanasnewsstation.com/news/explosives-stolen-from-forest-service-facility-near-red-lodge/

    What's going to go BOOM next? And if it was 'stolen' in April, why wait until now to ask for help?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for posting this, Noor.
    Though I applaud KB for wanting a lively historical debate about the whys and who dunnit of HHD, I think an examination of the actual HS (holocaust story) would get him started.

    Long lost forensic evidence, eh? How about Fred Leuchter, a consultant in the USofA for the design, construction and maintenance of execution gas chambers who was asked by Ernst Zuendel to prepare an expert opinion and in 1988 went to Poland to investigate the alleged gas chambers. He later testified at the Zuendel trial in Toronto. His verdict? Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, Hartheim Castle - no gas chambers, no gas chambers, no damn gas chambers!

    So, I have to say to Kevin Barrett: nice try, but no cigar.

    http://www.ihr.org/books/leuchter/publishers_comments.html

    Of course, Fred Leuchter's career was in ruins too.

    http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p429_Leuchter.html

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    Replies
    1. Hey Macht.... you know I really think you would get a lot of learning and pleasure listening to the Deanna Spingola radio show. Also the folks at The Ugly Truth. You would find your knowledge would be welcome and would also meet in the well moderated chat rooms not only like minded souls but learn a lot from every programme. Deanna is a gracious brilliant historian of these topics and her guests are, on the whole, dynamite. TUT is more hard hitting news analysis of the day with a fair bit of dark humour thrown in at times. Anyhow... just a thought!

      Delete
    2. Much appreciated, Noor, don't want you to be another ZCF. Besides, the arguments I've been reading and studying in the past 5 years are a circle jerk. He said, she said. It's all fine until you notice the deck is stacked. So, what I think we really need to do is to add another dimension (no pun intended). Otherwise this problem will never go away.

      And arguing for arguing's sake is not my thing. That is who's dominion? The $20 question.

      Oh, and Kryon of magnetic service said years ago where the joos go there goes earth. And he also said it's all human. I don't dismiss anything. Just thought I throw some more wet grass on the fire. Spring cleaning time.

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    3. Not a chance of me becoming another ZCF. That particular dragon who took him down approached me once but I had the good sense to turn down his offer. They don't like me too much either because of the company I keep... poor me.

      I will answer your question as to who argues for argument's sake? WHY, it must be "our dear friends"! They specialize in arguing, kvetching, suing, and speak always with a multi forked tongue.

      Delete
    4. Oops, I'm glad I didn't say 1 Mio. Guess I owe you a little Canadian greenie.

      Yeah, throw in CI with the chosen racists and you're covered.

      Delete
  3. In the above mentioned radio show they talked about the 6 million figure being proven through documents.
    http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Truth-Jihad-32k-042410.mp3

    Andrew M. (? ) was on the show: Mr. Dalton got put down by Andrew, as not having done his research properly.

    1. There was no plan to exterminate the Jews
    2. The number of death was only half a million
    3. There were no gas chambers

    Andrew's thought that Mr. Dalton left evidence out: I would like to learn more about the evidence.

    Why was Mr. Dalton wrong? (as Andrew said)

    Demographic data was also given by Nazi sources. Richard Koher (?), wrote report to Himmler, a "progress report" was written. Tabulation: Jewish population - 10 Mill. in Europe.. 17 million worldwide... he thought 4 million had disappeared. Mr. Dalton did not mention this report. Not the Jews reported themselves.

    After war 6 million figure has no basis. An "Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry" arrived of a loss of 6 million Jews, 5.7 million Jews. Why is nobody talking about this? It was about 1955 they say.

    There are figures above and below that number as well. The figure of 6 million can be disputed.
    References of 6 million Andrew thought was cherry picking as we can find 2,3, 10 million people dead if we look, and we conclude there is conspiracy.

    Eye witness reports are important in any historical event, Andrew says. All historical records these accounts are based on eye witnesses.

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  4. Mor of the same:
    Documents and evidence besides eye witnesses are:
    1. Documents
    They are explicit
    The Nazis tried to destroy but did not succeed.
    Radio report 1943... numbers match from deportation to death camps in Treblinka ,Sobibor, Belzek
    There was evidence:
    they found bone fragments, and other evidence but what would that say.
    Animosity between Germans and Russians one think that stories cannot be trusted but reports compare.

    Einsatztruppen send regular reports - The Germans kept records 1941, they send killing squads, the Einsatztruppen, they killed 100.000-sends of Jews. These Einsatztruppen, they send Reich Security Truppen and they said they killed so and so many Jews, Bandits, Communists by number. the skeletons are there when they dig at the areas. Testimony is there plenty.

    The Germans keep accurate records and trials in West Germany for members of Einsatztruppen in which they compared the figures which became apparent from the reports of Einsatztruppen, and they compared to the eye witness reports and to Russian sources and they matched.

    1.4 Million are supposed to be shot by Hilbert. They think Hilbert was to low on the shootings in Russia. I wonder if the Russians however, could have done some of these shootings. They were not known as lovers of humanity anyway.

    So, Hilbert is on the low side. Andrew thought Mr. Dalton left things out (which is easy to do).

    They then go into Göbbels Diary writings, of which I don't know anything about. Was this all premeditated or not? Some say yes others no.

    There is however convincing documentation in the form of references made by high ranking Nazis, like Himmler, Göbblels. There was meetings at 12 of December ??? that Hitler gave permission given by Hitler that those who are responsible for the war, including Jews, must pay with their lives. Göbbels wrote this in his diary (how do we know it is a real one - is what I wonder - as Hitler's Diary were fake and so is Anne Frank's Diary). So much has been faked... So many documents have been faked???

    Himmler wrote that "Jews are to be exterminated as partisans."

    Statement of Governor Frank from Krakau 16. ec. 1941 - Frank - we will somehow find a way to eliminate these Jews. Phsical killings is the only interpretations.

    There is a reference in the Wannensee Conference, that there is a coordination to coordinate the killing of Jews: A statement reads like this supposingly: "They will be taken to the East and die of natural causes and the rest, we will take care off."

    This means that Jews ought to be killed. The bodies which are not able bodied will be killed right away and the rest later. But this cannot be refuted and it should not be misinterpreted.
    Liquidation - means to kill..
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  5. Census records ghetto records train records say 2 million+Jews eere transported to Auschwitz Treblinka this is accepted by historians & scholarship the world over....
    So my question is this...
    If not gassed as deniers say ..
    Where did 2 million+Jews go to during WW2?

    ReplyDelete

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