TEHRAN, Dec. 18 (MNA) -- Robert Faurisson is a revisionist
scholar from France who attended the Review of the Holocaust:
Global Vision conference in Tehran from December 11 to 12.
Following is the text of an interview with Faurisson conducted
by the Tehran Times at the daily’s offices on December
13:
Q: What is your opinion about the Tehran conference?
A: This conference is a big and nice surprise. I had never
thought that there could be such a thing. I was really
pessimistic. When for the first time I heard that President
Ahmadinejad said that the Holocaust was a myth, I was so
surprised. I wondered if Iran would exist anymore. I thought
that the U.S. or Western countries would try to destroy this
country because the belief in the Holocaust is the central
pillar of the West and the world. To say that it is a myth is
something extremely dangerous. I, as a researcher, might say
that it is a myth, but for the head of a state it is extremely
dangerous. But he did it.
Can I say something more?
I think that the year 2006 will be counted in history as a very
important year because a country called Iran said no to Bush and
yes to revisionists. It is marvelous.
Q: Could you elaborate on what you mean by the word myth? People
use the word in a lot of different ways. Some mean it did not
happen at all and some mean that some aspects of it happened.
A: President Ahmadinejad has used the right word. The alleged
Holocaust of the Jews is a myth. That is a belief maintained by
credulity or ignorance. It does not mean that the people who
believe it are liars. They are not liars, but they are
believers.
Q: You are an expert in text and document analysis. What kind of
information did you find in the documents from World War II that
made you doubt some aspects of the Holocaust?
A: My work was the work of a policeman, not the work of a
professor. I was told there was a crime, an enormous crime. So I
said I want to see the weapon of the crime, and I want to see
the place. I went to Auschwitz, Dachau, Saxenhausen… and places
like that. And I asked a very simple question. I said show me a
gas chamber. They told me there is a fantastic weapon, and I
said, OK, show me.
In Auschwitz they said this is a gas chamber. And I looked at it
like a policeman. And I said, sorry, this cannot be a gas
chamber, for very simple reasons. Because they said that the
Germans used Zyklon B. Zyklon B is a product invented in 1920
and it is still used today to kill lice. But Zyklon B is
hydrocyanic acid, it is very dangerous. And they say that the
Germans would put 2000 Jews in this place. Two thousand people
in this place, it is already impossible.
But anyway, they would put Jews in this place, and then in the
roof there were four holes, and the Germans would go on the roof
and would dump pellets of Zyklon B (in the holes) and then the
Jews were dead. They say that a team, a group of Jews, would
come in, very gently, eating, smoking, taking the dead bodies
out to the crematoria, to burn them.
And I said, stop, impossible! Impossible because hydrocyanic
acid is something which sticks to the walls, to the roof, to the
ground, and it penetrates the same way in the bodies, it goes in
the mouth, everywhere, on the skin. So, first you cannot enter
this place even if you switch on the ventilation because it
sticks very strongly. You cannot get rid of it. And you cannot
touch the body of someone who has been killed by this gas. You
cannot touch it. And remember, they were eating and smoking.
Eating means no gas mask. And smoking is impossible because it
is explosive. So as it is told, it is impossible. I acted like a
policeman.
I went to the U.S. to visit a gas chamber. To execute one man,
it is horribly complicated, horribly complicated, because it is
too dangerous. If you see a gas chamber in the U.S., to kill one
person, first you see a door in iron fit like this, sealed
perfectly, because you don’t want the gas to leak. And then,
when the man is dead, it is extremely dangerous to go inside. So
you have special fans, pushing the poison out, with a very
strong vacuum. Then the gas is sent to a kind of tank to
neutralize the gas. The gas which is supposed to be neutralized
with sodium ammonia is sent up in a very high chimney.
On the day of the execution, the guards are not allowed to go up
to the towers because even this gas could be very poisonous. And
you have to wait something like one hour, and the doctor and two
people with boots, gloves, and gas masks with a special filter,
a very strong one, go inside the place and try to wash the body,
and they have to wash it thoroughly. Still the body is
dangerous. You have to wait and wait. On the day of the
execution, in spite of all those precautions, the body remains
dangerous. And the day after, you still have the smell. It is
fantastic, it is everywhere. To kill one man!
And there are many details that I could give you. I am going to
give you one. You see, it is a criminal investigation, an
inquiry. The gas chamber has a central pillar, very strong. Why?
Why do we need this very strong pillar? It is because the gas
might leak outside in spite of all the precautions, so you have
to create a depression. If you create a depression the gas
chamber might crumble, so it has to be very strong. And many
other details -- it’s not a luxury, it’s necessary. It’s not
American fantasy.
At the beginning, in 1917, during World War I, many Americans
thought of the electric chair, “That’s too cruel. We are going
to invent something. We are going to use gas. The people will be
there, you will put gas in, the people will go to sleep, we’ll
go inside, we’ll take the body (out), and finished!” No! The
engineers had to work five years, I think, to create one gas
chamber and it was used for the first time in 1924 in Carson
City, Nevada. They executed a man, but it was nearly a
catastrophe. So you see, people think it is very easy.
The Jews invented the story, I’m sorry, of the Zyklon B. They
could have taken perhaps other gases, but they took this one,
because when you got into the camps, you found cans of Zyklon B.
It is a stupid story. It is as if I come here, I see a knife,
and I say, “Oh, this is the proof that Faurisson is a murderer!”
A can of Zyklon B is the same thing. It was to protect health.
I could also explain to you the technicalities of Zyklon B
applied to this, to cloth. It is totally different, because this
is dead, this is living. But, too many technicalities.
It is technically impossible.
So I published this in the daily Le Monde. And I said if you
people say that it is technically possible, come, explain to me.
And I got their answer. I had to wait six weeks. Thirty-four
professors -- you know what professors are -- signed a big
declaration, and I’m going to quote exactly what they said, I’m
not going to change a word, so this is the answer of 34
professors, this was on February 21, 1979: “It must not be asked
how technically such a mass murder was possible. It was
technically possible since it happened.” Professor silliness!
Which means clearly: “Faurisson, we are not able to explain”;
because if they had an explanation, they would have given it.
And I said show me a gas chamber. And I went to Auschwitz; they
said this is a gas chamber. And I said, no, no, it is
impossible. First, you have three doors, which triples the
difficulty of getting it sealed. In Auschwitz the gas chamber
had a short door with glass on the upper part of the door. The
door opened inward, and the dead bodies were there, you could
not open the door. It is silliness. It is such a silly story. It
is humiliating for people to believe that. I said this at the
end of the 1970s…
I was insulted, I was kicked out of the university, I had I
don’t how many court cases. I was ruined. No more money for
myself, for my wife, for my children. I was insulted day and
night and for years and years.
And in 1995, one day, opening a magazine called L’Express, there
was a very long article written by a man called Eric Conan. And
this man is against us.
And he had written a book about the Holocaust. So I was reading
this, and suddenly, on page 68, I thought I would fall off my
chair, I read this. He said about the gas chamber in Auschwitz,
the emblematic gas chamber, which has been visited up to now by
25 to 30 million tourists. They say that at the Auschwitz
Museum. He said exactly this: “Everything in it is false.” And
he said: “In the late 1970s, Robert Faurisson exploited these
falsifications all the better as the museum administration
balked at acknowledging them.” So Faurisson exploited those
falsifications, and it was easy for him because the people at
the Auschwitz museum didn’t want to answer him. So it was easy.
Let me tell you one thing. So, Eric Conan went to visit a lady
who was a manager of the Holocaust Museum, and he said, “How is
it? It’s false. You cannot keep it like that. You have to tell
the visitors.”
Q: So he acknowledged and confirmed the falsifications that you
discovered?
A: More than that. He said everything is false. And then he went
to see this lady, and the lady answered, “No. We are not going
to explain. It would be too difficult. So we’ll leave it as it
is.”
Which means: “We have lied, we are lying, and we are going to
continue to lie.”
Q: Why are Israelis and most other Jews so sensitive about the
Holocaust, and why are countries like the United States and some
other countries which pay reparations even more sensitive about
this issue?
A: It’s because the Holocaust is weapon number one of the state
of Israel. It’s the sword and the shield of the state of Israel
and… Jewry, all together. It’s their weapon number one. They
need it. Because after the war, in 1947, the British Empire, the
French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the
Dutch Empire, everywhere the colonies were crumbling,
disappearing. And you had an artificial creation of a colony of
Jews in Palestine.
Q: At the very time of decolonization, at the beginning of
decolonization.
A: Yes. So, it’s very strange. And the explanation is this. It’s
only because the Jews would say, “Our sufferings were
exceptional. So, for an exceptional evil, you need an
exceptional remedy.” That’s why, to answer your question, the
United States and the Jews all over the world, not only the
Zionists, they need this myth. It’s vital for them.
Q: Those who support the Holocaust claim that they have been
paying lots of money to the survivors of the Holocaust, but on
the other hand, the survivors, the Jews, claim that this is just
a registration, there is no money. How’s that?
A: You have on the one hand Jews, on the other hand you have
Jewish organizations. Organizations like the World Jewish
Congress with Mr. Edgar M. Bronfman. So Edgar Bronfman comes and
says to Switzerland, to Germany, and to Austria, you have to
pay. And they paid. And Mr. Bronfman takes the money. According
to many Jews it seems that many of them, or perhaps a few of
them, do not receive any money.
Q: In the press you are being very harshly criticized. People
are taking your words out of context. Can you clarify your
position? You are not denying every single aspect of this. You
are basically saying that the gas chambers didn’t exist, but you
are not denying that some Jews were in concentration camps and
some of them died of various causes such as illness or overwork
in these concentration camps?
A: Of course… I never said the concentration camps did not
exist. I never said that there were no deportations. I never
said that there were no Jewish hostages shot or things like
that. Of course.
I say the deportations happened, the concentration camps
existed, but there were no extermination camps.
Q: In your opinion, how many Jews were killed?
A: We do not know. But we could know. There is a place in
Germany, in Arolsen, called the International Tracing Service.
And in 1978, when the revisionists came, they closed their
historical section they had in German. This was a place where
you had kilometers and kilometers of documents.
But, for clarification, you should hear my 60-word sentence.
It’s 60 words in French. I said I should put it in one sentence.
“The alleged declared Nazi gas chambers and the alleged genocide
of the Jews form one and the same historical lie which has
permitted the gigantic political and financial swindle whose
main beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international
Zionism and whose main victims are the German people, but not
their leaders, and the Palestinian people in their entirety.”
Now when I say historical lie, it does not mean that the people
who are repeating it are liars. They are repeating something
that they think is right.
Q: The Tehran Holocaust conference has created a firestorm of
controversy throughout the world. Do you think you will be in
danger when you go back to your country?
A: Yes, and we know already that yesterday (December 12) they
said that I should be arrested on my arrival in France. But, of
course, I am going back in spite of the danger.
I’m not sure if I will be arrested, but I will certainly be
prosecuted, because remember what happened quite recently with
the Sahar television network.
But I don’t care! I had so many trials. I know that
automatically I will be sentenced…
Here in this country I feel free. I can discuss with you. In
France it is absolutely impossible. In France if a newspaper
would say, “We have received Faurisson”… the Jews would say,
“Bad for you.”
They say you have no right to dispute the Holocaust. Even you
don’t have the right to look as if you are disputing the
Holocaust. You should not even give the appearance (of disputing
the Holocaust).
For instance, there is a professor in Lyon, who recently said
only this: “As for the gas chambers, I wish the historians could
debate about it freely.” A catastrophe! He was kicked out of his
teaching position for five years, with his salary cut in half,
then he was sued in court by I don’t know how many people, and
you know what happened? And I can understand that. I don’t
criticize him.
He went on his knees, like Galileo Galilei. A Jewish lawyer
said, “If you say that the gas chambers existed, I’ll withdraw
our complaints” -- yet I don’t know how many. And the professor
hesitated, and said yes. And the lawyer said, “Say it, say it.”
And the president of the tribunal said, “Say it. Do you confirm
that you say that they existed?” And he said yes. And after the
trial, he went to one of us, I don’t want to give his name, and
he said, “I am ashamed, I behaved like Saint Peter” -- who said,
“I don’t know Jesus.” The man to whom he said that said, “But at
least Saint Peter afterwards corrected himself and did something
good afterwards for Jesus.” And this professor said, “I am going
to do like Saint Peter.”
To the contrary, you know what he did? He said to the media, “I
have always said that the gas chambers existed!” And I
understand that. If you could see what is the trial of a
revisionist in France. I have been to court cases of
revisionists in France, in Belgium, in Austria, in Germany, in
England, in Canada. It’s terrible. It’s absolutely terrible. The
strongest man could become like a ghost, broken.
Q: It’s like the Spanish Inquisition?
A: Oh, yes. And you don’t need to touch the people. It’s not
prison, it’s not finances, it’s not that. It’s the fact that you
cannot go in the street -- like my wife -- because in the street
they say, “Hah! She’s the wife of the man who says that
concentration camps did not exist.”
Q: So the person becomes an outcast in society?
A: Of course, but I don’t care.
My wife cares, of course! My eldest son cares very much. Every
time that I go through this kind of ordeal, I think of the
Palestinians. And I say I have no right to complain.
Q: Discussion of the Holocaust and even examining it
historically is forbidden, but it is permissible to study every
other aspect of history. What do you think of this fact?
And another question. In France, which is mostly a Christian and
a Catholic country, somehow their interpretation of Western
liberal democracy allows them to make fun of God and of the
Bible. They can question the truth of the Bible, they can
question God, but they can’t question the Holocaust. Doesn’t
this somehow put the Holocaust above the Bible and God in a
Christian country? Is there no reaction on the part of the
Christians of France to this state of affairs?
A: No! Among the people suing me in the court for the Sahar
interview, you had the League of Defense of Human Rights. They
were against me, saying Faurisson is an offence to human rights.
Faurisson is inspired by hatred, by anti-Semitism, by I don’t
know what. They say that they read in my brain. They should look
at what I’m writing, but it is totally taboo. We have only one
taboo.
Do you know that in France there is a TV program called Les
Guignols? For at least one year they kept repeating that the
president of the republic was a “super liar”. So, you can touch
the president of the republic in France, you can say anything
you want, anything, but don’t even dispute the gas chambers,
don’t even look as if you are disputing it. And if you want a
precise reference about that, we have a criminal code on page
2059, seventh column, edition of 2006, you will see, they say,
you don’t have the right to dispute even in a disguised way or
by insinuation. The law was very simple. The law said you have
no right to dispute. But afterwards you have what we call
implementation. So, there is no right to say it even in a
disguised way.
Don’t go to France and pronounce my name! Be careful! Don’t say
that you have seen me! You are finished!
Q: So, almost none of the Christians are rising up against this
system that basically puts another idea above Christianity?
A: The Christians are the worst! The people who say we defend
freedom of information, of thinking…
You know, this is an experience of life. You are young. Remember
that an old man told you this one day: If somebody comes and
says, “I am a defender of human rights”, do you know what I do?
I escape! Why? Because people who have that in their mouth, they
don’t have it in their brain because they think, “Oh, I’m so
good, I am defending liberty.” So those people think that they
are so good that other people can only be bad. They approach me
and say, “Mr. Faurisson, I am not sure you are as good as I am!”
This is an experience of life. Like people who say, “I am
against the war, against the war.” They are very dangerous.
Q: Would you like to say a few last words?
A: The fact that President Ahmadinejad said this is so important
that, of course, it is an encouragement for me. But when I
receive a piece of good news, I am waiting for a bad one. I
think that on Friday (December 15) it will be the bad news.
Q: You mean like trouble from the government of France or…
A: Or Jewish force. I have been attacked physically ten times,
twice I nearly died.
Do you know that there is one question that I cannot answer? It
seems that I can answer any question, but there is one that I
cannot answer. It is when people come to me and say, “Robert,
you might be right, but perhaps you should not speak your mind
because Robert, don’t you have a wife, don’t you have children?
It seems that you are forgetting your wife and your children.”
My father used to say the first duty of a man is to protect his
wife and his children. And I don’t know what to answer. What
would you answer?
But a soldier does not choose this. He has to go. It’s an order.
But nobody orders me to do this.
How is it that Galileo Galilei did what he did?
You are a student or an adult or an old man and you read books,
and you say, “Oh wonderful, this man was so brave.” And we have
our heroes. But when you meet a man like me, who is a little man
compared to those people in courageousness, you say, “He’s a
fool.” Because you are a coward! And seeing someone who is
courageous, you feel humiliated.