Rebutting the anti-revisionist’s ‘best evidence’ for the existence of Nazi ‘gas chambers’
Many months ago, when I first connected with alt.revisionism, I saw that there, as elsewhere, those who believe in and support traditional Holocaust extermination stories keep alleging over and over that the “Holocaust” is the best-documented event in history, and that there are mountains of evidence to prove that it (the “Holocaust") happened, just as we have been told for nearly 50 years.
I therefore asked for the one or two best pieces of evidence to support claims that the Third Reich had a plan or policy to exterminate Jews in gas chambers. I specifically said that I do not “deny” the Holocaust. I specifically stated that I agree that some Jews suffered horribly during the Second World War, some solely because they were Jewish, and that some had died, from a variety of causes.
However, I have reason to doubt the existence of the so-called homicidal gas chambers about which we hear so much. Therefore, I thought that those who say they have a mountain of evidence to support their claims would be ready, willing, and able to provide me with at least one piece of reliable evidence to support their contentions.
Here is the wording of my challenge:
First, I do not deny the Holocaust happened. Let me repeat that. I do not deny the Holocaust happened. For the purposes of this discussion, I am using a fairly generic definition of the word “Holocaust,” which is “the murder of six million Jews as a central act of state by the Nazis during the Second World War, many in gas chambers.” If anyone has a problem with this definition, I invite you to provide your version.
I was wrong.
Instead of solid evidence, I was deluged with personal attacks. My position was egregiously misstated and mischaracterized. I was offered any number of “testimonies,” most of which have no basis in fact. But I was offered no solid evidence to support the existence of what would have to be the world’s most horrific device of mass murder, the Nazi gas chamber.
I waited for months for this evidence to be provided me. It has yet to appear. Typical of the response that I have received, however, is a post by Harmon, Keren, McCarthy, McVay, and Stein (sometimes collectively known as Nizkor) that claimed substantively to establish once and for all that there were Nazi gas chambers.
Throughout the discussion, the anti-revisionists in alt.revisionism refused to understand my question in spite of my repeated explanations. It really is quite simple.
I am not asking for evidence of any or all Nazi wrongdoing. For the purposes of this discussion, I am specifically interested in the gas chambers. If there were Nazi gas chambers for the purposes of mass executions of Jews, this fact alone would indicate that the Nazis meant to kill many, if not all, of the Jews they could.
Therefore, it is of no use to talk about “eyewitnesses,” chemical properties of the insecticide supposedly used in the mass exterminations, or anything else. First, we must locate and/or define a Nazi gas chamber. Everything else comes second.
With this in mind, let us now turn to the post I received, supposedly in response to my simple challenge of months before. Instead of one or two best pieces of evidence, the anti-revisionists have provided ten pieces of non-evidence.
Referring to Message-ID: [email protected], dated Wed, 04 Jan 95 09:05:08 GMT, we find this:
On April 20th, Greg Raven posted a challenge. He asserted, without evidence, that the Holocaust never happened — and he challenged those of us who disagree to _prove_otherwise_!
You can see that already this post is on shaky ground, as the anti-revisionists misquote and mischaracterize my challenge. I never said that “the Holocaust never happened.” This is, however, a common ploy designed to portray Holocaust revisionists in an unfavorable light. [For more about this ploy of calling revisionists “deniers,” including an in-depth examination of the definition of the phrase “the Holocaust,” see “Defining the Holocaust."]
The anti-revisionists then go on a long rambling attack on me, misquoting and mischaracterizing in innumerable ways. But, finally, they attempt to get to the meat of the matter, which is what I have to assume is the anti-revisionists’ “best evidence” of the existence of the Nazi gas chambers. Remember, my request — made in order to try to keep the discussion manageable — was for the one or two pieces of the best evidence that the Nazis had a plan or policy to exterminate Jews in homicidal gas chambers. Here are the ten they provided.
The anti-revisionists’ evidence
Document one
The anti-revisionists’ first candidate for single best piece of evidence:
We begin with … a speech delivered by Heinrich Himmler. The speech is quite famous and its text may be found in many sources, for example in the book _Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals_, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949-1953.
Speeches by Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler before senior SS officers in Poznan. October 4 and 6, 1943.
I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the elimination of the Jewish people. This is one of the things that is easily said: “The Jewish people are going to be exterminated,” that’s what every party member says, “sure, it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination — it'll be done.” And then they all come along, the 80 million worthy Germans, and each one has his one decent Jew. Of course, the others are swine, but this one, he is a first-rate Jew. Of all those who talk like this, not one has seen it happen, not one has had to go through with it. Most of you men know what it is like to see 100 corpses side by side, or 500, or 1000. To have stood fast through this and — except for cases of human weakness — to have stayed decent, that has made us hard.
I ask of you that what I say in this circle you really only hear and never speak about. We come to the question: how is it with the women and children? I have resolved even here on a completely clear solution. That is to say, I do not consider myself justified in eradicating the men — so to speak killing or ordering them killed — and allowing the children to grow up and avenge our sons and grandsons. The difficult decision has to be taken, to cause this race to disappear from the earth.
Not a pretty speech, to be sure, but there is not one mention of gas chambers, even obliquely. Reams could be written about what Himmler was referring to here, but one of the purposes of my “simple” challenge was to narrow the discussion to that of the existence of the gas chambers. I have responded elsewhere regarding some of my thoughts of this Himmler speech (which was not given in English but in German, so there are translation errors to deal with as well), and I may return to it at some later date, but for now I must restrict myself to pointing out that there are no “gas chambers” mentioned here. Remember, I am not denying the Holocaust: I am questioning the existence of the “Nazi gas chambers.”
(Webmaster note: See also “Document NO-365 and the Riga ‘gas chambers’”)
Document two
This is the anti-revisionists’ second candidate for single best piece of evidence.
From the book _Hitler and the Final Solution_ by G. Fleming, University of California Press, 1984, p. 142.
Report entitled “Resettlement of Jews” written by SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Gricksch for SS-Col. von Herff and Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler, after inspection of the Auschwitz camp on May 14-16, 1943.
The unfit go to cellars in a large house which are entered from outside. They go down five or six steps into a fairly long, well-constructed and well-ventilated cellar area, which is lined with benches to the left and right. It is brightly lit, and the benches are numbered. The prisoners are told that they are to be cleansed and disinfected for their new assignments. They must therefore completely undress to be bathed. To avoid panic and to prevent disturbances of any kind, they are instructed to arrange their clothing neatly under their respective numbers, so that they will be able to find their things again after their bath. Everything proceeds in a perfectly orderly fashion. Then they pass through a small corridor and enter a large cellar room which resembles a shower bath. In this room are three large pillars, into which certain materials can be lowered from outside the cellar room. When three- to four-hundred people have been herded into this room, the doors are shut, and containers filled with the substances are dropped down into the pillars. As soon as the containers touch the base of the pillars, they release particular substances that put the people to sleep in one minute. A few minutes later, the door opens on the other side, where the elevator is located … Then the corpses are loaded into elevators and brought up to the first floor, where ten large crematoria are located. (Because fresh corpses burn particularly well, only 50-100 lbs. of coke are needed for the whole process.) The job itself is performed by Jewish prisoners, who never step outside this camp again.
Anyone interested in a complete treatment of this document are directed to “The Franke-Gricksch 'Resettlement Action Report': Anatomy of a Fabrication,” by Brian Renk, which appeared in the Fall 1991 Journal of Historical Review, page 261. Or, you are welcome to view my condensed version.
Briefly, however, this “document” is nowhere signed by Franke-Gricksch, there is no original copy of this “document,” and Franke-Gricksch mentions a “rail spur” that did not exist until six months after his alleged visit.
Document three
This is the anti-revisionists’ third candidate for single best piece of evidence:
From the book _The Goebbels Diaries 1942-1943_, edited by L.P. Lochner, Doubleday and Co., 1948, p. 86.
Goebbels' diary, February 14, 1942.
World Jewry will suffer a great catastrophe at the same time as Bolshevism. The Fuehrer once more expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will now go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.
March 26, 1942.
Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the general government [Poland] are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.
Again, not pretty words, but no mention of gas chambers. Again, one could argue about the meaning assigned some of the words in this translation. For example, for Goebbels Jews are to suffer “destruction” the same as Germany’s enemies. Does this mean that Goebbels meant to stuff every Soviet solder and Communist party member into a gas chamber? No. Does it even mean that Goebbels meant to kill every Soviet soldier and Communist party member? Extremely unlikely, and at any rate it was not his decision to make. Finally, I have a four-volume series of photographs of WWII published shortly after the war by the VFW, and in many of the photo captions they talk about “liquidating” the Germans. Do you suppose this means the American Army was stuffing German soldiers into gas chambers? Or killing them to the last man? Probably not.
Document four
This is the anti-revisionists’ fourth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
Höss' memoirs describe the gassing process clearly and unambiguously in many places. Here is one example. The memoirs were published, among other places, in the book _Kommandant in Auschwitz_, by Rudolf Höss, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, 1958. English translation _Commandant of Auschwitz: the Autobiography of Rudolf Höss_, World Press, Cleveland, 1959, p. 123f.
On the railroad ramp the Jews, who up till then had been under the supervision of the state police, were taken over by a squad from the camp. They were led by the head of the detention camp, in two detachments, to the bunker. That was what we called the extermination installations. The luggage stayed on the ramp, from where it was carried to the sorting area — called Kanada — between the buildings of the DAW [weapons factory] and the courtyard. The Jews had to undress near the bunker. They were told that they had to go into what were called delousing rooms. All these rooms, five in all, were filled simultaneously. The doors were hermetically sealed, and the contents of the cans of gas were dropped in through the holes in the ceiling provided for this purpose.
Half an hour later the doors were opened; there were two in each room. The corpses were removed and taken to the ditches on tip wagons that ran on rails. Trucks carried the clothes to the sorting area. All the work, including help in undressing, filling the bunker, emptying the bunker, burying the corpses, as well as digging and filling up the mass graves, was done by a special detail of Jews who were housed separately and who, in accordance with Eichmann’s instructions, were also exterminated after each big operation.
Well, they’re getting closer. Here at least is a mention of a gas chamber, but once again, we have no actual gas chamber … just a testimony. And who is giving this testimony?
Even Holocaust authorities such as Deborah Lipstadt and Christopher Browning now acknowledge the revisionist position that Höss was not a reliable witness (the revisionists have discovered indications that he was tortured), as can be seen in the December 1993 Vanity Fair. There is more available on the Höss business through the Höss file. To give just two examples, however, Höss also claimed that 2.5 million Jews alone were gassed at Auschwitz (a figure roughly double what most “Holocaust” historians now admit was the “true” figure of total victims), and spoke of a camp by the name of “Wolzek,” which does not (and never did) exist. (See “Auschwitz,” by Mark Weber, on the Institute for Historical Review website in the “Leaflets” subdirectory.)
Document five
Here is the anti-revisionists’ fifth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
Höss not only wrote many pages detailing the extermination effort, he testified about it under oath. This segment of that testimony is quoted in _Documents on Nazism, 1919-1945_, edited by Jeremy Noakes and G. Pridham, Viking Press, New York, 1974, pp. 490-1. [text deleted]
If his utterances were not sufficient in Document 4 due to his unreliability, they cannot be sufficient in a different document. Need we say anything more about Höss?
Document six
Here is the anti-revisionists’ sixth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
From the book _The Good Old Days_, by Ernst Klee, W. Dressen, and V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988, p. 68.
Ereignismlrdung UdSSR No. 128 [Operational Situation Report from the USSR No. 128], November 3, 1941.
In Kiev, difficulties that arose during the execution of a major action of this type — particularly with regard to registration — were overcome by the use of posters announcing that all Jews were to report for resettlement. Although it was initially thought that the action would only involve 5,000 to 6,000 Jews, more than 30,000 Jews reported, who as a result of extremely efficient organization still believed they were going to be resettled right up until the time they were executed.
Despite that fact that up to now a total of some 75,000 Jews have been liquidated in this way, it has nevertheless become apparent that this method will not provide a solution to the Jewish problem.
Is it just me, or is there really no mention of gas chambers in this document?
I’d could let it go at that, but in passing we should note that Holocaust historians claim the Einsatzgruppen were given the task of wiping out Jews in the Eastern territories (this is a fragment from a report by Einsatzgruppe C). Isn’t it odd that the various Einsatzgruppen units submitted 127 previous reports, in which they should have discussed wiping out the Jews (given that this allegedly was their task), yet it is not until this, the 128th such report, over four months after the first report, that the anti-revisionists find something they find incriminating?
Document seven
This is the anti-revisionists’ seventh candidate for single best piece of evidence:
From the book _The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945_, by G. Reitlinger and T. Yosellof, South Brunswick, 1968.
Letter from SS Major-General Stahlecker to SS General Heydrich, January 31, 1942.
The complete removal of Jewry from the eastern territories has been substantially attained, with the exception of white Russia, as a result of the execution up to the present time of 229,052 Jews.
Rather like the “body counts” of our soldiers in Vietnam, and just as inaccurate … but still no gas chambers. Remember, I agree that some Jews died simply because they were Jews, and we don’t know that some of these Jews didn’t die because of their political (pro-Communist) beliefs or actions.
We’re still looking for a Nazi gas chamber.
Document eight
This is the anti-revisionists’ eighth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
From the book _Trente-quatre mois dans les camps de concentration_ (Thirty-four months in the concentration camps), by Dr. Andre' Lettich, L'Union Cooperative, Tours, 1946. Translation appears in _Nazi Mass Murder_, by Eugen Kogon, H. Langbein, and A. Rueckerl, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993, pp. 150-151.
Up to the end of January 1943 there were no crematory ovens at Birkenau. In the middle of a little birch wood, about two kilometers from the camp, was a peaceful-looking cottage in which a Polish family, expelled or murdered, had lived. For a long time this cottage had been used as a gas chamber.
More than five hundred meters from it were two barracks: the men were grouped on one side, the women on the other. Very politely, very amiably, a little speech was made to them. “You've arrived after a trip; you're dirty; you're going to have a bath. Undress quickly!” Towels and soap were distributed, and then the brutes revealed themselves in their true colors: with heavy blows this human herd, these men and women, were driven naked, winter or summer, across the hundred or so meters that separated them from the “shower room.” Above the entrance door was written “Brausebad” [showers]. Shower heads could even be seen on the ceiling; they were cemented in, but water never flowed from them.
These poor innocents were piled up, packed against one another, and it was then that panic began: they finally understood what fate awaited them. But blows with clubs and revolver shots quickly calmed things down, and all finally penetrated this mortal chamber. The doors were closed and, ten minutes later, the temperature had risen high enough for the hydrocyanic acid to volatize — it was with hydrocyanic acid that the condemned were gassed. It was Zyklon B, diatomite impregnated with a 20 percent solution of hydrocyanic acid, that the German barbarians used.
Then SS-Unterschardfuehrer Moll dropped the gas through a little window. The cries that could be heard were frightening, but after a few moments complete silence reigned. Twenty to twenty-five minutes later the windows and doors were opened to air the room, and the corpses were immediately thrown into ditches, where they were burned.
Another “testimony,” but at least this one deals with gas chambers (even though it erroneously conflates them with crematories).
But what does it say about this alleged gas chamber? Apparently, this “peaceful-looking cottage” no longer exists, or the cottage itself would be introduced into evidence. (Which would you rather have, endless testimonies about flying saucers, or one real, honest-to-gosh flying saucer to examine for yourself?) This remarkable cottage has shower heads cemented into the ceiling, and “peaceful-looking” though it may be, at some point there are those in the group that recognize it for what it really is, a homicidal gas chamber for mass gassings, something that no one has ever seen before (or since!). Why a “peaceful-looking cottage” would be recognized as something that none of them had ever seen is not mentioned in this “testimony.”
The characteristics of this cottage continue to amaze, as it is so well insulated that it takes only ten minutes for the naked, shivering people inside to warm the interior temperature to nearly 80 degrees F, and this in the dead of the brutal Polish winter!
This remarkable cottage also has windows (in a gas chamber?), through which an SS man drops the Zyklon B poison. These are very special windows, apparently, because those within the cottage cannot break them, nor climb out of them.
In this unique cottage, the HCN gas that normally would be emitted gradually over a period of many hours from a slow-acting insecticide, Zyklon B, comes rushing out so that “after a few moments” there is silence. In the homicidal gas chamber here in California, it takes that long for the HCN gas to work in a much smaller room, in which they use a much higher concentration of much faster-acting chemicals. But this should not surprise us, because this chemical-slaughterhouse of a cottage can then be opened a scant 25 minutes after a mass homicidal gassing, sooner than the California gas chamber can be opened after gassing an individual. Perhaps California correction officials are going at it all wrong with their sophisticated ventilation systems. From this fantastic cottage, corpses can “immediately” be taken out and cremated, whereas in California there is an extensive post-execution, HCN-neutralizing ammonia scrub of the inside of the gas chamber and the body performed by people in hazardous material suits before the body is removed.
In California, remember too, they use a very much faster-acting process. In this cottage, HCN gas would continue to “gas off” of the slow-acting Zyklon B long after the doors were opened and the workmen entered to remove the bodies. Not a very efficient way of doing things — unless the prison authorities here in California have matters completely backwards.
It is a pity that this cottage did not survive so we could examine it today. Doubtless we could all learn something about the extraordinary construction techniques employed by the architects and builders. It should not have been difficult to find: all you have to do is look for it next to the magical ditches into which you can throw human bodies and have them burn, even though corpses require a lot of energy to cremate, and in a ditch there would be a decided scarcity of oxygen to fuel a blaze of whatever origin (another common Holocaust extermination claim).
Document nine
Here is the anti-revisionists’ ninth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
Notes From Diary of SS-Doctor Kremer, while in Auschwitz ['The Good Old Days' — E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988, p. 256-268]
2 September 1942
3.00 a.m. attended my first Sonderaktion. Dante’s Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don’t call Auschwitz the extermination camp for nothing!
5 September 1942
In the morning attended a Sonderaktion from the women’s concentration camp (muselmans); the most dreadful of horrors. Hschf. Thilo — army doctor — was right when he said to me this is the 'anus mundi'. In the evening towards 8.00 attended another Sonderaktion from Holland.
10 October 1942
Extracted and fixed fresh live material from liver, spleen and pancreas …
12 October 1942
Second inoculation against typhus, later on in the evening severe generalized reaction (fever). Despite this in the night attended a further Sonderaktion from Holland (1,600 persons). Ghastly scenes in front of the last bunker! That was the 10th Sonderaktion.
13 November 1942
Extracted fresh live material (liver, spleen and pancreas) from a previously photographed, severely atrophied Jewish prisoner aged eighteen. Fixed as always, liver and spleen in Carnoy and pancreas in Zenker (Prisoner No. 68,030).
Kremer’s diary and other utterances have been thoroughly treated by Dr. Robert Faurisson in “Confessions of SS Men who were at Auschwitz,” in the Summer 1981 (Volume 2, number 2) issue of The Journal of Historical Review.
To cover this ground briefly, there is no mention of a gas chamber here. It is worth noting in passing that Kramer is misquoted in the very first excerpt given. A much better translation would be:
2 September 1942: This morning, at 3 o’clock, I was present OUTSIDE for the first time at a SPECIAL ACTION. Compared to that, Dante’s Inferno appears TO ME ALMOST LIKE a comedy. It is not without reason that Auschwitz is called THE camp of THE ANNIHILATION!
Faurisson has placed in capital letters those words and phrases that are either missing or mistranslated in the version posted above. Clearly, mass homicidal gassings are not outdoor events. Not so clear from these passages, but discernable from other evidence is the fact that the “annihilation” about which Kremer is speaking is in fact the terrible typhus epidemic sweeping Auschwitz at that time. For example, in a letter of 21 October 1942 that Dr. Kremer had sent a friend, he wrote:
I don’t really know for certain, but I expect, however, that I'll be able to be in Muenster before 1 December, and thus finally turn my back on this hell of Auschwitz where, in addition to the typhoid, and so on, typhus has once again broken out strongly …
Document ten
Here is the anti-revisionists’ tenth candidate for single best piece of evidence:
From Dr. Kremer’s testimony regarding his diary, published in _The Good Old Days_, by Ernst Klee, W. Dressen, and V. Riess, The Free Press, New York, 1988, p. 258.
I remember I once took part in the gassing of one of these groups of women [from the women’s camp in Auschwitz]. I cannot say how big the group was. When I got close to the bunker I saw them sitting on the ground. They were still clothed. As they were wearing worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the undressing hut but made to undress in the open air. I concluded from the behavior of these women that they had no doubt what fate awaited them, as they begged and sobbed to the SS men to spare them their lives. However, they were herded into the gas chambers and gassed. As an anatomist I have seen a lot of terrible things: I had had a lot of experience with dead bodies, and yet what I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen before. Still completely shocked by what I had seen I wrote on my diary on 5 September 1942: “The most dreadful of horrors. Hauptscharfuehrer Thilo was right when he said to me today that this is the 'anus mundi,' the anal orifice of the world.” I used this image because I could not imagine anything more disgusting and horrific.
There are many interesting things about this “testimony,” but one of the most fascinating to me is that we have what Kremer wrote at the time, which is not damning, and then we have what he said in the Polish (Communist) court procedings. I happen not to trust Communist sources or their show trials. Anti-revisionists appear not to share my reluctance about tainted sources.
Beyond that, there are many nuances involved in understanding this “testimony.” I will quote again from Robert Faurisson:
I said that Professor Kremer, appearing before the tribunal in Münster (Westphalia) in 1960, had confirmed the confession that Communist examining magistrate Jan Sehn (of Jewish origin?) had obtained from him in 1947 and that at the Frankfurt Trial (1963-1965) he had been called as a prosecution witness against his compatriots. What I did not yet know in 1980 and what I learned later is the reason why the poor man, after ten years of prison in Poland (1947-1957) and after returning to his city of Münster, had gone before a German tribunal. I discovered the reason while reading, in its French Version, the Anthologie d’Auschwitz (blue), Volume 1, Part 1, Warsaw, 1969, pages 239 to 261. The reason is that after his return to Münster in 1957, Kremer began to protest against the treatment that he had undergone at the hands of the Polish courts …
… Kremer, as a matter of fact, had complained that in Poland “only hatred was entitled to give its opinion” (page 240). Better than that, we learn, thanks to that Communist publication, that after his return to Münster Kremer retracted his confessions …
“Revisionism on trial in France: 1979-1983,” JHR, Summer 1985, p. 133-181.)
Conclusion
I believe that the reason these ten “documents” were presented together is that in total they seem damning. When viewed individually, however, none of them demonstrates a Nazi plan or policy to exterminate Jews (or anyone else) in gas chambers, nor do they establish the existence of even a single Nazi gas chamber. As such, these documents are not evidence as much as they are adminicles; that is, pieces of a proof, as if you can add half a proof to a quarter of a proof to an eighth of a proof to a sixteenth of a proof and come up with almost a whole proof. This may work in a court of law (or a witchcraft trial!), but revisionists want to know what actually happened. What are the facts? You cannot get to the facts through adminicles, just as you cannot conduct mass gassings without a gas chamber.
The underlying assumption made by the presenters of these documents is that revisionists are either unaware of the existence of these documents (that is, stupid), or trying to ignore them (that is, deceitful), but neither is the case. Put yourself in the position of being a revisionist who wants to discuss the Holocaust. Would you attempt to defend your position without knowing the documents and other source materials? Of course not. Based on my knowledge of the documents, I knew when I issued my challenge that I would be confronted with material I had already evaluated. I also knew it was possible that someone would come up with something both substantive and unknown to me, but this has not happened in all the years I have been asking for such evidence, and it didn’t happen this time.
As a revisionist, I interpret the relevant documents differently than an anti-revisionist, in large part, I believe, because I don’t need the Holocaust to have taken place as commonly related in the many extermination and atrocity stories we have all heard for 50 years. Those who do need the Holocaust (for ideological or other secondary reasons) will necessarily interpret these documents and other materials much differently.
If you want to believe the “Holocaust” happened, fine. If you want to hate Germans for occurrences — real or imagined — that happened 50 years ago, that is your problem. But without substantive evidence to the contrary, the “gas chamber” lie must go, just as have other lies about Germany, Germans, and the “Holocaust,” such as the “human soap” lie and countless others. There will still be more than enough tragedy to go around, and telling the truth — telling what really happened — is a better way of honoring those who suffered than is telling lies and inventing imaginary victims.
Note: To suit their ideological ends, anti-revisionists ignore this qualifier. By ignoring the actual text of what I wrote, they can then claimed that in this paragraph I am “denying the Holocaust” (a silly term if ever there was one).
Note also that none of the anti-revisionists came forward with an alternate definition of “the Holocaust,” yet clearly, this is a horribly flawed definition of “the Holocaust” outside of the context of this discussion. Therefore, the anti-revisionists have accepted as an authoritative definition of “the Holocaust” an extremely limited definition created for the sole purpose of focusing discussion of Holocaust extermination claims; and they call me the “denier.” As far as I know, they have yet to acknowledge my actual definition of “the Holocaust.”
Update — December 2006: Anti-revisionists such as Ken McVay continue to initiate personal attacks based on misrepresenting this simple paragraph. Keep in mind that the same anti-revisionists who so egregiously misread and mischaracterize this paragraph (written in English, no less), are the same ones who claim to be able to find in foreign-language documents written decades ago, proof positive of Holocaust extermination claims. This alone disqualifies them from any pretense of scholarly discussion of this subject.