Clapping for Tinkerbell

Toward the end of January 2009, Roman Catholic Bishop Williamson, associated with the Society of Saint Pius X, said in an interview “I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against — is hugely against — 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.” An apparent “Jewish leader” who — according to the CNN headline — was “outraged” replied with one word:

“Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee called the move by the Catholic Church [to lift the excommunication of Bishop Williamson] ‘shameful.’”

That sums up the Holocaust and why belief in it persists.

After Bishop Williamson broke the taboo, editorials and quotes professing belief in official Holocaust story appeared in the media. During the first week of February, prodded by who knows who, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a protestant, released a statement to the press:

“The Pope and the Vatican must make it unequivocally clear that there can be no denial that the Holocaust happened.”

The Holocaust’s a litmus test for anyone with authority. Chancellor Merkel, with her country sliding into depression, told Pope Benedict that she wants veto authority over Roman Catholic policy and dogma.

Pascal’s Wager

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

Belief in God is different from Holocaust belief: Death reveals the outcome of Pascal’s wager; with the Holocaust, punishment for disbelief is immediate. Along with official expressions of Holocaust belief were calls for Bishop Williamson’s renewed excommunication, banishment, and denunciation of his heresy by the Pope. There can be no positions of authority for disbelievers. After the bishop refused to retract his statements – only promising to review the historical evidence – he was removed as head of a seminary in Argentina and threatened with deportation.

This is the pattern. Once a disbeliever has been identified as being employed by someone that can be publicly, politically pressured, the pressure starts to isolate and discredit the revisionist. This shows belief in the Shoah is very important for several inter-related power structures to maintain. The Shoah has certainly been called the founding myth of Israel, but it’s the founding myth of the modern German republic too. American foreign policy is also dependent on the Hitler paradigm; Nazi analogies are always made when the U.S. State Department threatens another country.

Profession of Faith

Group activities promote group cohesion. The rapid punishment of non-conformity discourages questioning of authority. Ritual is established to give insiders the sense of worth and security associated with membership. In hierarchical structures, ritual plays a huge role in establishing authority. Authority is intolerant of anything that undermines its credibility. The Holocaust myth is state-sponsored, foundation-of-the-German-Republic, official. It’s protected like an endangered species in a growing number of countries. As a result, when someone in a position of authority questions the myth, the denunciations come quickly to protect the credibility of those who endorse it.

Tinkerbell by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital London 2005. Released into the public domain (by the author).
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tinkclose-1-.jpg

The ritual is set. And we’ll see it again. It is reminiscent of the scene from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie when the faerie, Tinkerbell swallows poison intended for Peter. Peter then gets the audience to demonstrate its belief in faeries by clapping to resurrect her. Not clapping would imply complicity in fatacide – the murder of a faerie. Any time the dying Holocaust story is questioned, we must demonstrate our belief by clapping for the gas chambers.

Praester Fides Supplementum Sensuum Defectui

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) defines a belief as an emotionally held opinion that is treated like a fact. NLP deals with methods for changing human behavior through reorganizing the emotions associated with particular stimuli. The sense of smell, for example, is strongly associated with emotions: People smell cookies baking and are put into a good mood. The particular smell is associated with particular memories and emotions. Creating one of these associations is called “anchoring.” It’s like Pavlov’s experiments where dogs associated the ringing of a bell with being fed. The training caused them to salivate when a bell rang whether food was present or not. People create their own anchors, or anchors can be induced.

The Holocaust myth is a belief — emotionally held opinion treated as fact. Many negative emotions are associated with both the story and any challenge to it. These emotions are intentionally anchored to the story to protect it from challenge. This technique’s demonstrated with Rabbi Rosen’s single word quote: “Shameful.” Shame’s now associated with the tolerance of anyone who doesn’t accept the Shoah as fact. Rabbi Rosen’s just created an anchor re-enforcing the taboo.

People are taught to associate emotions with propaganda. National symbols, for example, are intentionally associated with specific emotions. Children are trained to feel respect when the flag in on display. It enhances credibility and triggers deference to authority. It opens a mental path for the establishment of belief.

Credibility is needed to implant belief. Bishop Williamson should know this since his business is the promulgation of faith. This explains why “Jewish leaders” always attack revisionist credibility — to protect established belief.

Belief Versus Knowledge

A problem with Bishop Williamson’s reply is it’s prefaced with “I believe.” When asked about this topic, tell the interviewer what’s known, and not what’s believed. When he says “I believe,” Bishop Williamson is challenging one set of beliefs with another. That puts him at a disadvantage. Remember, belief is treated as fact. Anyone starting with “I believe” is expressing opinion. When pitting fact against opinion, fact wins.

Bishop Williamson referred to the Leuchter Report and air photos in his reply to the interviewer. While the Leuchter Report provides important information, invoking it is an appeal to authority. The Leuchter Report presents expert opinion. Coming to a conclusion about whether morgues are gas chambers by examining blueprints and reading the label “morgue” instead of “gas chamber” doesn’t take an engineer. It takes little research to know crematory retorts don’t reduce three bodies in fifteen minutes. Despite that, research is avoided since doubt induces guilt and shame.

Revisionists have attempted to show that it’s possible to determine chemically if Zyklon B was used in a room. Revisionists want to verify the eyewitness accounts. Gas chamber thesis defenders reply that any test contradicting eyewitnesses is invalid since the only dependable evidence is testimony. Those relying on the accounts for their belief accept that the stories are true and find the idea they need confirmation offensive.

The Holocaust taboo won’t be dislodged by pitting one set of sources against another. New approaches need to be tried with the knowledge of how people view belief and how emotions anchor their opinion.

The gas chamber story is a clumsy lie. The problem is dislodging the lie will take more than its exposure. Something has to take its place. The true chronology of Auschwitz has to be offered as a choice. Something happened. If it wasn’t genocide, what was it? Revisionism provides seldom-aired answers.

Auschwitz was no secret. Every day the camp SS office radioed headquarters reporting prisoner tallies. The British intercepted some of these transmissions and monitored Auschwitz. In August 1944, the British RAF labeled a request to plan a mission to bomb the gas chambers “fantastic” – and by that they didn’t mean “terrific.”

There was continuous communication between Auschwitz and the outside world up to its evacuation. Packages and letters went in and out. Staff and prisoners came and went. Photos were taken both by people on the ground and in Allied aircraft. International Red Cross inspectors visited Auschwitz as late as September 1944.

In 1940, the Nazi governor of occupied Poland ordered scrap material be collected and sent to processing centers for sorting and reworking. Starting in 1941, Auschwitz processed enormous quantities of old clothes. This is the source of old shoes put on display at the Auschwitz museum, not gas chamber victims.

Lousy scrap material spread typhus through the camp in mid 1942. Typhus is why Zyklon B was at Auschwitz. Prisoners sorting clothes became infested with lice and caught typhus. To stop the epidemic, large fumigation and disinfection facilities were built in late 1942 and during 1943 to sterilize scrap material and delouse prisoners.

The Nazis left the construction office archive when they evacuated. The plans for the Birkenau crematoria were included in it along with a record of their operation and fuel consumption.

Distinguishing morgues from gas chambers by expert inspection is not necessary. There is no doubt that during 1943 the crematories were only disposing of people whose deaths had been recorded by Auschwitz doctors.

The record for 1944 is sketchier. There are no published fuel delivery receipts for that year. With Germany in retreat, coke became unavailable. The dead were cremated with wood instead of coke: An August 1944 British air photo shows smoke in an area close to one crematory. The Red Army found wood stacked in the same area five months later when it occupied Auschwitz.

There was no extermination of Jews at Auschwitz. If it was happening the Allies would have known about it immediately due to the camp’s transparency.

Make no mistake. The Nazi system of prison and work camps, like the Soviet gulag system, is to be condemned. Many Poles, Jews, and others in the Nazi occupied East were displaced, and enslaved. Their property was stolen and communities scattered. There’s nothing admirable about that. Even so, it’s inexcusable to accuse anyone of imaginary crimes.

Revisionists need to replace the conventional Auschwitz narrative with a real one. If that’s not done, the Holocaust belief won’t be supplanted.

Gematria

The second part of the Holocaust myth Bishop Williamson disbelieves is six million Jews were killed.

The number has symbolic significance for Cabalists. Needless to say, the question how many becomes academic once the gas chambers are discredited. Nevertheless, accepting the six million figure implies there was intent to exterminate the Jews. So, addressing the number is important due to this implication.

There’s no quick way to verify or discredit the six million number. Auschwitz and the number of Jews who died there, on the other hand, can be addressed.

In 1989, Pressac published documents concerning Birkenau crematoria operation.

Auschwitz once was where at least 2.5 million Jews died. For the last twenty years, it’s been where a million Jews died. Though other studies estimate lower numbers, one million is used most.

Assume one million people died at Auschwitz in gas chambers between 1941 and 1944. In those four years, how was this carnage distributed?

In March 1943, Dr. Korherr completed his report for Himmler. It states that by the end of 1942 less than 4,500 Jews had died at Auschwitz.

That means the Nazis needed to kill another 995,500 more in the next two years.

The Nazi built “outsized extermination facilities” in 1943. There were problems. Because of mechanical breakdown, all four crematoria never operated at once. The coke delivery receipts show only enough fuel for around 35,000 cremations was delivered that year. Since the crematories were being used to only burn a number close to 1943 recorded deaths, registered camp deaths were all there were. There were 37,000 registered deaths that year. Because they remained a minority at Auschwitz, less than half that died at Auschwitz in 1943 were Jews.

The Nazis neither built nor repaired crematories in 1944. Fuel deliveries stopped. The transparency of the camp increased as Allied aircraft were photographing the area every few days. It’s impossible there was anything close to another 50,000 cremations at Auschwitz that year.

The number of Jews who died at Auschwitz was somewhere around forty thousand, but none died in the Holocaust as commonly defined. Forty thousand is horrible, but isn’t genocide.

There are two counter-arguments to the use of registered deaths to count Jewish deaths at Auschwitz: The deaths of practically all Jews went unrecorded; there is testimony gassings started as early as autumn 1941 and continued until November 1944.

Claiming official policy kept these events unrecorded isn’t evidence. It’s an excuse. Testimony alone is worthless.

There’s no callous intention here. A death is no less tragic when it’s not part of an official government genocide program. But, as part of a government program, a death becomes exploitable.

This is why we must demonstrate belief in the Holocaust. Deborah Lipstadt explained that the Holocaust was different from the other government mass murders – like Stalin’s – because they were indiscriminant killings of political enemies while Hitler killed members of an identifiable group – Jews. Therefore, Jews not killed by Hitler could claim victim status and as victims seek compensation. If the Shoah becomes discredited, the status of Jews as victims is as well.

It’s high time people stopped believing in Nazi gas chambers. It’s as silly as believing in faeries.

Originally published in Smith's Report No. 159, March 2009