The Case for Open Debate

THE HOLOCAUST CONTROVERSY
The Case for Open Debate
THE CONTEMPORARY ISSUE
Is asking questions a crime? If you develop doubts about the
Holocaust, isn’t the only way to get rid of these doubts by asking
questions? A lot of individuals and groups are enraged by those
who ask critical questions about the Holocaust.
Every other historical issue is debated as a matter of course,
but influential pressure groups have made the Holocaust story an
exception. Anyone should be encouraged to investigate critically
the Holocaust narrative in the same way they are encouraged to
investigate every other historical event. This is not a radical point
of view. It is just plain reason.
THE HISTORICAL ISSUE
National Socialists saw Jews as being an influential force behind
international communism and finance. During World War II, Jews
were considered to be enemies of the German State and a potential danger to its war efforts, much like the Germans, Italians,
and Japanese were viewed in the U.S. Consequently, Jews were
stripped of their rights, forced to live in ghettos, conscripted for
labor, deprived of their property, deported, and otherwise mistreated. Many tragically perished.
In contrast to establishment historians, revisionists claim that
the German State had NO policy to exterminate the Jewish people
(or anyone else) in homicidal gas chambers or by killing them
through abuse or neglect. Revisionists also maintain that the figure of six million Jewish deaths is an irresponsible exaggeration,
and that no execution gas chambers existed in any camp in Europe
which was under German control. Fumigation gas chambers, both
stationary and mobile, did exist to delouse clothing and equipment in order to prevent disease at POW, labor, and concentration camps and at the fighting front. It is highly likely that it was
from this life-saving procedure that the myth of extermination gas
chambers emerged.
Revisionists generally hold that the Allied governments, and
in particular the Soviets, decided to carry their wartime “black which at the end were mainly used to support the Soviet revolution in Russia.
On 22 March 1916, that is during the First World War, the
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an article falsely claiming that the Germans had murdered 700,000 Serbs in gas
chambers. On 25 May 1942, that is during the Second World War,
the same newspaper reported that the Germans had murdered
700,000 Jews in Poland in gas chambers. In 1944, the British
Government asked the British media and churches to help spread
anti-German propaganda, which it had been putting out already
for a while, in order to distract from the atrocities it expected to
be committed by the Soviets as soon as they invaded Germany. In
its circular, the British government expressed its regret that, after
the exposure of WWI propaganda lies, greater efforts would be
necessary to make people believe it.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND REVISIONISM
Many people are bewildered when they first hear Holocaust
revisionist arguments. The arguments appear to make sense, but
“How is it possible?” After all, the whole world believes the orthodox Holocaust narrative. It’s just not plausible that the truth
could have been suppressed for so many decades.
To understand how it could have happened, one needs only
to reflect on the intellectual and political dogmas of medieval
Europe, of National Socialist Germany, or of the Communist-bloc
countries. In these societies, the great majority of scholars were
caught up in the existing political culture. Committed to a prevailing ideology, these scholars and intellectuals felt it was their
right and duty to protect that ideology. They did so by oppressing
“evil” dissidents who expressed “offensive” or “dangerous” ideas.
In those societies, scholars became the “Thought Police.”
In our own society, in the debate over the question of political
correctness, there are those who deliberately attempt to trivialize
the issues. They claim that there is no real problem with freedom
of speech in our society, and that all that is involved with political correctness are a few rules which allegedly protect minorities
from those who would otherwise hurt their feelings. There is, of
course, a more serious aspect to the problem. In American society
today, there is a wide range of ideas and viewpoints which the
mass media will not allow to be discussed openly. Even obvious
facts and realities, when they are politically unacceptable, are denied and suppressed. One can learn much about the psychology
and methods of the Thought Police by watching how they react
when just one of their taboos is broken, and Holocaust revisionism is given a public forum.
First they express outrage that such “offensive” and “dangerous” ideas were allowed to be expressed publicly. They avoid
answering or debating these ideas, claiming that to do so would
give the revisionists a forum and legitimacy. Then they make
vicious personal attacks against the revisionist heretics, calling
them political names such as “hater” or “denier,” even suggesting
that they are potential mass murderers. They publicly accuse the
revisionists of lying, but they don’t allow these dissidents to face
their accusers so that they can answer this slander.
Revisionists are frequently accused of being hate-filled people who are promoting a doctrine of hatred. But revisionism is a scholarly process, not a doctrine or an ideology. If the Holocaust promoters really want to expose hatred, they should take a second look
at their own doctrines, and a long look at themselves in the mirror.
Anyone who invites a revisionist to speak publicly is himself attacked for being insensitive. When revisionists do speak publicly,
they are regularly shouted down and threatened. Libraries and bookstores such as Amazon face threats and intimidation when they offer
Holocaust revisionist materials. All this goes on while the majority
of library, media, college, and university administrators stand silently
by, allowing political activists to determine what can be said in the
media and read in libraries.
Next, the Thought Police set out to destroy the transgressors professionally and financially by “getting” them at their jobs or concocting lawsuits against them. It is sometimes often deceptively claimed
that revisionist scholarship has been proven false during a trial,
though courts of law can never decide any scholarly debates; they
can only impose dogmas.
Finally, the Thought Police will inevitably “straighten out” that
segment of academia or the media that allowed the revisionists a forum in the first place.
Some administrators in academia hold that university administrations should take action to rid the campus of ideas which are disruptive. This is an open invitation to tyranny. It means that any militant
group with “troops at the ready” can rid the campus of ideas it opposes. Timorous administrators might find it much easier and safer
to rid the campus of controversial ideas than to face down a group of
screaming militants. But it is the duty of university administrators to
insure that our universities remain a free marketplace of ideas. When
ideas cause disruptions, it is the disrupters who must be subdued, not
the ideas.
CONCLUSION
The influence of Holocaust revisionism is growing steadily both here
and abroad. In the United States, revisionism was launched in earnest
in 1976 with the publication of the book The Hoax of the Twentieth
Century by Prof. Dr. Arthur R. Butz. Today, revisionism is presented
in many university-style studies of serious scholarship. Those who
take up the revisionist cause, represent a wide spectrum of political
and philosophical positions. They are certainly not the scoundrels,
liars and demons the anti-revisionists try to make them out to be.
The fact is, there are no demons in the real world. People are at their
worst when they begin to see their opponents as an embodiment of
evil, and then begin to demonize them. Such people are quite prepared to harm their opponents. The logic of their argument is that
you can do anything you want to a demon. We should not allow such
a logic to prevail.
Those wishing to verify the truthfulness of the statements made
here are invited to visit our website www.HolocaustHandbooks.
com where you can watch thoroughly researched documentaries and
download free of charge most of our (soon) 50 meticulously documented studies on various aspects of the Holocaust.