SMITH'S REPORT

Reviewed by Arthur R. Butz

   Here I shall use the term "revisionist" as synonymous with "Holocaust revisionist" and "Holocaust denier". This new DVD explores the imprisonment and other persecution of revisionists. It is timely. On account of laws criminalizing revisionism Germar Rudolf and Ernst Zündel are in prison in Germany and David Irving in Austria. Dr. Robert Faurisson recently received a suspended three-month prison sentence in France and was ordered to pay a fine. These are only the most prominent victims as I write.

These events have not gone unnoticed in the media. Historian David Irving, in particular, is a household name and the British press and others have editorialized against his imprisonment. However, the press support for Irving's release falls far short of satisfying revisionists, because that support is formulated in such a way that it could also be applied to flat-earthers. The gist of such support is that everybody is entitled to say ridiculous things.

Why?

It is significant that, until the mid-70s, there was little legally enforced persecution of revisionists in Europe or elsewhere. Books by Paul Rassinier and others had circulated free of official interference, however loud some protests. The screws were tightened in the 80s, and the 1990 passage of the Fabius-Gayssot law in France was a watershed event. Orwell's 1984 arrived about on schedule. The past must not be investigated. We are now a select minority chosen as victims of blatant hypocrisy.

What changed? Very simple: the considerable intellectual merit of revisionism had become obvious. For example the earlier works of Rassinier were honorable efforts, but they could not be reasonably compared to the work of Faurisson. I do not intend to belabor this further: our work is persecuted because it is good, and therefore threatens the crown jewels.

Our Evaluation

Our evaluation of Mark Farrell's DVD, therefore, asks the fundamental question of whether or to what extent it explains the preceding to the viewer. Mere proof that First Amendment standards of free speech are being violated isn't good enough. By "viewer" I mean those who are sometimes called "intelligent lay-men". The personal reactions of convinced revisionists are unimportant except as they evaluate this DVD as instruction for the intelligent layman.

A DVD has limitations. It can't transmit the content of revisionist theory and research in the sense of our books and past articles in full-length journals (e.g. the defunct Journal of Historical Review). How then does a DVD convince the viewer, or at least make plausible to him, that revisionists are persecuted because their work is intellectually consequential? This is a fundamental difficulty but there are some effective remedies. One is to argue from credentials, that is, the public stature of the victims apart from their revisionist work, as I shall illustrate presently. Another is to show confrontation or relevance, i.e. that revisionists are confronting matters that the popular press has made notorious in support of the "Holocaust" legend, and which almost every-body has encountered, e.g. Auschwitz.

I recently expressed myself to university students on the persecution, in my article in the student newspaper Daily Northwestern of 14 Feb. 2006, available on the web:

http://media.www.dailynorthwestern.com/media/storage/paper853/news/2006/02/14/Forum/Iran-Has.The.U.s.s.Number-1920928.shtml ).

Of course I think the way I did it is exactly the way it should be done, otherwise I would not have done it that way! I am, therefore, a biased reviewer, but the only practical alternative to a biased reviewer is a reviewer who doesn't understand the subject. To relieve such a suspicion of a conflict-of-interest, it should be noted that the format of my presentation was quite different from, and the content not suitable for, a DVD.

The foregoing being understood, does this DVD accomplish what I think it ought to? I have some serious concerns.

I shall forgive my name being pronounced "boots", and being given short shrift; I have not been persecuted to an extent comparable to other revisionists anyway. My main complaints are that obvious opportunities to argue confrontation or credentials are not taken, and the substance of revisionism is unintentionally misrepresented.

Dr. Fredrick Töben, who was jailed in Germany in 1999, is shown prowling about the ruins of the crematoria and alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz. The viewer will wonder where Töben is and what he is looking for or has found. Sadly, nothing in the sound track or captions indicates he is at Auschwitz, or is examining alleged gas chambers. Confrontation was not pointed out. It would have taken only a few words.

Dr. Robert Faurisson gets only a brief passing notice as a French professor who was beaten up because "Jewish Holocaust enforcers . . . . considered him to be a revisionist," a wording that suggests Faurisson is at best a closet revisionist. In fact the Fabius-Gayssot law started out as a virtual bill of attainder against Faurisson! Everybody in France knew that. How could he be treated as a minor character in this context? While Faurisson is identified as an academic, his academic specialty, "criticism of texts and documents", served his revisionism well, and is evident in his writings even today, but the specialty is not mentioned. An opportunity to argue from credentials was bypassed, and a few more words would have shown confrontation.

The case of Fred Leuchter is important because, while he was not prosecuted in the USA, he was blacklisted by our legal system. His executions equipment business was ruined because of his revisionist gas chamber investiga-tions. His case shows that legally-sanctioned repression exists in the USA as well. Incredibly, Farrell notices Leuchter only as somebody who served some jail time in Germany! He is not even identified as an American, let alone our leading execution technologist. A starkly obvious opportunity to argue credentials and confrontation was not taken. That appalls me.

As noted, a DVD can't do full justice to revisionist research, but this DVD misleads the viewer on its principal thrust. It is stated early that revisionists have been persecuted for stating "the truth", promising to answer the question "what do these revisionists have to say?" Specifically, it presents "what life was truly like in the German concentration camps" based on old films of Nazi origin to depict Jewish life under the Nazis. This material is in the central position and takes up almost half the time and will therefore be interpreted by the viewer as representing the revisionist position. Though it is eventually stated that "these camps were not paradises", the general impression left is that the Jews had an almost idyllic existence under the Nazis.

This impression is not representative of revisionist work. Revisionists are not being persecuted for suggesting Jewish life under the Nazis was idyllic. Revisionism has always centered on a negative: we say certain things did not happen ("deniers"). In so arguing, we must of course indicate at least tangentially some things that did happen, but what happened has not been our basic aim. The segments depicting Jewish life should be published, but not as representative of revisionism. Caution: the subject of what happened to the Jews is multi-faceted, no simple generalizations can be made, and I don't believe a single DVD could do justice to the question.

The general message that the intelligent layman will get from this DVD is that revisionists, of unknown intellectual credentials, are being persecuted for saying that Jewish life under Hitler was idyllic, though the contrary is stated there with a few words. Such distortion of our message is disturbing.

The Glass is More Than Half Full

Now that the devil's side has been heard I remark that, until Farrell came along, revisionist activity in the area of video productions was limited, consisting mainly of lectures delivered, in most cases at our meetings, and in some cases in camps. Many features of Farrell's DVD, and earlier ones he has produced, are quite professional. For example, he understands the need for frequent scene changes, the value of contemporaneous film clips, and the futility of extended abstract argument in such a format. In this connection, however, I advise that background music is not always necessary, and his choices strike me as weird and in some cases even eerie.

I think that this sort of professionalism dominated to the detriment of other needs. Availability of archived film or video trumped other considerations, or so it seems to me.

Though at the end he acknowledges help from several people, Farrell tried to do too much personally. He was producer, editor, director, historian, engineer, distributor and shipping clerk, probably from his kitchen table. The only thing he didn't do, apparently, was the narration. He needs at least one more working collaborator of solid revisionist knowledge. Then we will have a revisionist video house of real consequence.

The bottom line: revisionists should buy this DVD, but use it cautiously outside revisionist circles.