mailto:davylawyer1@gmail.com[Updates as of 2017 are enclosed in [] brackets]
It is often alleged that between 1939 and 1945 about 6 million
European Jews were wrongfully killed by Nazi Germany, many in
prison camp gas chambers. This event is know as the "Holocaust" and
is sometimes called genocide. Starting in l979, an organization
known as the "Institute for Historical Review" (of Costa Mesa,
California) disputed [but is no longer disputing it]. [but is no
longer disputing it]. The Noontide Press, which has the same
address as the Institute has published a number of books supporting
the revisionist view, two of which are: 1. Rassinier, Paul
"Debunking the Genocide Myth" 1978 (but actually written mostly in
the l950`s and 60's) 2. Butz, A. R. "The Hoax of the Twentieth
Century" l977. [ More recent books are: 3. Marrago, Carlos "Myth of
the extermination of the Jews" and the "documentary video: 4.
"Holocaust: the greatest lies ever told"]
Books have also come out opposing the revisionists:
1. Rosenthal, Ludwig "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question:
Mass-murder or Hoax?" Institute for the Righteous Acts, Judah
L.
2. Seidel, Gill "The Holocaust Denial (Antisemitism, Racism & the New Right)" Beyond the Pale Collective, Box No. 6, 59 Cookridge St., Leeds LS2 3AW, England, l986
3. Shermer, Michael and Grobman "Denying History; Who says the Holocaust never happened ,,." 2001, updated 2009. This book is the best of the 3 listed here but is not reviewed here. But it fails to discuss Butz's argument that the holocaust didn't happen because the Jews were still there (in Communist E. Europe).]
There are also a large number of books about the alleged Holocaust but most of them assume that the reader accepts the "fact" of the Holocaust and do not devote much (if any) space to attempt to prove that the Holocaust actually took place.
If one wants to get to the probable truth of the matter, one must examine much of the evidence and decide for himself, but unfortunately this was not an easy task in the late 1980's.. After looking over a small part of the evidence in 1989, I have come to some tentative conclusions:
It looks like the Holocaust really did take place and that millions of European Jews were actually killed by Nazi Germany. The book by Butz, supporting holocaust denial, with its academic style and extensive documentation is insidiously deceptive. It is mostly all true except for several crucial errors which invalidate his thesis. It was better written and more convincing than the Seidel book (The Holocaust Denial) which exhibits some sloppy scholarship opposing the denial. However in 2001 (updated in 2009) the book "Denying History" by Shermer + greatly surpasses the Seidel book in believability. Next, let us examine some of the fatal flaws in the Butz book.
On p. 10 par. 4 of Butz he states, "The simplest valid reason for being skeptical about the extermination claim is also the simplest conceivable reason; at the end of the war they [the Jews] were still there." On p. 15, figures are presented which show a loss of nearly 5 million Jews for Eastern Europe but Butz questions the validity of these figures on p. 15 par. 2. On p. 17 par. 2 he states "... the sources and authorities for the figures used are Communist and Jewish and thus, by the nature of the problem we are examining, must be considered essentially useless." One should always be skeptical about figures but there seems to be other evidence that they are missing such as personal knowledge by residents of Eastern Europe. [Since the Jews failed to reappear after the collapse of the "Communist" regimes after 1990, Butz's claim that they are still there becomes even more absurd.]
Butz's bias on sources show through on p. 205 par. 2 where he states: "To answer the question in general [of what happened to the European Jews], all one need do is consult the relevant German documents. What the German leaders were saying to each other about their policy is obviously the first authority that one should consult." Of course German (Nazi) documents should be consulted since they appear to contain a great deal of truth (but likely not the whole truth as the killing of the Jews may not have been documented or if it was, the documents may have been destroyed). One needs to do much more than just consult the German documentation.
On p. 212 par. 7 after reviewing German documents regarding resettlement of Jews in the Eastern Territories, Butz states "here is unambiguous documentary evidence that no extermination program existed; the German policy was to evacuate the Jews to the East." How can documentation which fails to mention any extermination program be "unambiguous evidence" that it didn't exist. It has been claimed that the extermination program was carried out mainly by verbal (non-written) orders.
Butz's sympathy for the Nazi regime is clearly shown on p. 31 pars. 3, 6: Admiral (Canaris) was a traitor". "... Canaris betrayed Germany at every opportunity". "... Canaris used all his powers to betray Germany". Canaris refused to support the Nazi regime and possibly spied for the British. If the Nazi's were wrong, would someone actively opposed to them be betraying Germany? Betraying the Nazis yes; but the tone of Butz's remarks reveals his bias favoring the Nazis.
An interesting document describing the gassing of Jews was allegedly written by a German, Kurt Gerstein, who was opposed to the gassing of the Jews. Butz presents the "Gerstein Statement" on p. 251+. On p. 255 after the end of the Gerstein Statement Butz comments that "It is difficult to believe that anybody intended that this 'statement' be taken seriously." Yet it certainly is taken quite seriously by others and books have been published on Gerstein's life:
1. Joffroy, Pierre "A Spy for God, the Ordeal of Kurt Gerstein", Hancourt, Brace Jovanovich, NY 1969.
2. Friedlander, Saul "Kurt Gerstein", Alfred A. Knopf, NY, l969.
These books go into much more depth than Butz does regarding Gerstein and tend to support the authenticity of the document since the history of Gerstein's life indicated that he is just the sort of person who might write such a document.
One point of contention in the Gerstein statement is on p. 253 par. 2 of Butz. Gerstein says the 7-800 persons were crammed into a gas chamber of only 25 square meters (floor area) at the Belzac camp in Poland. Butz thinks this is impossible but since many of the Jews being gassed were children and babies, and many were thin, it might almost be possible. This discrepancy is solved if one believes the Joffroy book where on p. 287 the size of this gas chamber is reported by Gerstein as 25.2 meters by 45.3 meters. This doesn't make sense since this would imply such a low density of people that the gas chamber would not be filled up "well" as was ordered per Gerstein. Confirming the 25 square meter figure is Friedlander, who on p. 109 reports this as 270 square feet. It looks like a possible falsification on the Gerstein report to make it look more credible. But if one looks at the above two books, it appears that there are others who confirm many of Gerstein's observations and that one should not necessarily reject Gerstein's statement because of a few errors. [However, per the next paragraph Gerstein wasn't likely in error.] Another complication is that Gerstein made more than one version of the report, but they all say about the same thing.
[ An email sent to the Institute for Historical Review by Charles D. Povan on 14 Mar. 1991 reports on a successful test of cramming people into a small space with the same people density as the original Gerstein report.]
The claim by Butz (p. 256 par. 3) that departing by car and finding oneself on a train is a contradiction is not necessarily a contradiction since "car" may mean railroad car.
The books supporting the Holocaust are mostly written by Jews but this seems logical as they have strong feelings about it, especially if they feel strongly Jewish. They tend to write with a feeling of self-righteous outrage, but this attitude will not be convincing to one who is not already fully convinced as to the existence of the holocaust. There is apparently some falsification of data and/or poor scholarship but the existence of such does not disprove the holocaust.
Now to criticize the pro-Jewish book by Seidel (The Holocaust Denial). The introduction on p. xxiv implies that people who believe in flying saucers are in the same class as those who believe the earth is flat. On the next page, such persons are associated with the "lunatic fringe" which denies the holocaust. This is a very biased introduction and will only antagonize people who maintain an open mind to the existence of flying saucers (as many people do). It will also antagonize anyone who is willing to give a reasonable hearing to those who deny the holocaust. To start off the book by demeaning such persons is not a way to convince them of the book's veracity.
In 1989 I wrote: If one looks at German reports of the death rate in various camps (see Butz p.126-7) it becomes obvious that there must have been a huge number of wrongful deaths. A death rate of a few percent per month as reported by many camps is sufficient to wipe out most of the prisoners within a few years. Even if the claim by Butz (that execution by poison gas didn't happen) should be true (not likely) the permitting of such high death rates to exist in the camps is tantamount to murder. One way or another millions of Jews (and others such as "Communists") were wrongfully killed and it is not really a crucial point as to whether or not it was done by poison gas.
The strong support for holocaust denial (although it claimed otherwise) was the Institute for Historical Review in Costa Mesa, California, founded in 1978. The Institute itself was very active and held annual meetings in Orange County, California. But the Institute was not solely devoted to denying the holocaust and today IHR's main website no longer supports holocaust denial. See its history per Wikipedia. A supporter of holocaust denial, Robert Faurisson, wrote an open letter objecting to IHR's change
IHR today emphasizes that Jews have a strong presence in the motion picture (entertainment) industry and that the person accused of sexual harassment in the industry, Harvey Weinstein, is a Jew and has supported pro-Jewish causes. It's also supporting the Iran nuclear deal. So the organization is engaged today (in part) in publicizing true information of an anti-Jewish nature.