A Devious Attack on Free Speech.

Seventy percent of American voters view anti-Semitism as a "very" or "somewhat serious" problem  according to a survey conducted by Quinnipiac University at the beginning of March 

This widespread aversion to "anti-semitism" is being crafted into a useful tool by defenders of orthodox Holocaust history. The gambit is to define Revisionism as “anti-semitic,”  thus creating a widely accepted justification for the criminalization of Revisionist discussion, theavoidance of honest research, the banning of books, and the blacklisting of scholars. Since 2005, there has been a determined push for an adoption of a new "working definition of antisemitism" which includes, "Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)."

See here 

This new and expanded definition was created by EU Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (without consulting any Revisionists) and has been accepted by various governments since including the 31 countries of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. On December 12, 2016 United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her government will officially adopt a working definition of anti-Semitism, while also saying it was “disgusting” that anti-Semitic views are found in British politics.

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Why debating history could be deemed "anti-Semitic" is unclear;  after all it is said, "History is never gotten right the first time."  What grandstanding politicians like Ms. May don't seem to understand is that orthodox Holocaust history as given at the Nuremberg Tribunal has already been revised almost beyond recognition by all historians, Revisionist and Believer alike. At Nuremberg, the Court found that there was a secret master plan of mass murder on the part of Adolf Hitler, the so-called "Intentionalist" view. But research by scholars like Martin Broszat, David Irving and Christopher Browning have shown that there was never any order by Hitler, nor any planning, nor any direction coming from Berlin. As Broszat puts it, "the Holocaust began bit by bit as German officials stumbled into genocide."  In simple terms, Intentionalism is dead while a welter of various theories on the origin of German policies takes the collective name "Functionalism."

Under the orthodox Nuremberg view, "the Plan" was to create secret "Extermination Centers" at Auschwitz and Majdanek where the Jews of Europe were to be transported and murdered.  Huge numbers of people were alleged to have been murdered at these two locations; 2,500,000 to 4,000,000 at Auschwitz and 1,400,000 at Majdanek.  Again, the orthodox tale has been revised.   The new official Auschwitz figure is approximately 1,000,000 while the Majdanek figure is 78,000.  While these figures represent a horrible tragedy, the scope of deaths has been reduced by millions.

While the new expanded working definition mentions "gas chambers" as the mechanism of mass murder, that belief has largely collapsed.  Tales of steam chambers, diesel killings, and electrical devices have all been consigned to the Memory Hole while recognition of deaths caused by diseases, brutal conditions, and starvation have risen.  At the same time, the Holocaust has moved East with the the rise of belief in "The Holocaust by Bullets," a belief generally based on Father Patrick Desbois 2009 eponymous book.  If the so-called Operation Reinhardt Camps are excluded, gas chambers played a small role in the alleged mass killings, less than 16% of the total, yet they remain the icon of the Holocaust.

While most mainstream historians vociferously assert that the Holocaust is "a fact," the origin, the scope, the location, and the mechanism are all in dispute. To require belief in "The Holocaust" without an understanding of hese still disputed elements is  grotesquely Kafkaesque. 

The founder of Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, Bradley Smith wrote,

“Although it is standard practice to defame Revisionists as ‘anti-Semites who claim the Holocaust is just Jewish propaganda,’ that is not what we at CODOH argue. Briefly, we believe that much of that history that we are taught today has been influenced by Soviet, British and American wartime propaganda which exaggerated and exploited real tragedies for propaganda purposes. This concerns not just Jews but Slavs, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses and, in some versions, Gays.”   Bradley went on to correctly state, "It can be argued that there is considerable research that supports this point of view." 

Solid historical and scientific facts have vitiated  much of the orthodox Holocaust history as given at the Nuremberg Tribunal: Doubting that a Steam Death Chamber operated at Treblinka or factories produced human soap at Auschwitz is no more "anti-Semitic" than not believing in the transubstantiation of the flesh is "anti-Christian."    Unfortunately, politicians like Theresa May in the UK or US Senators Bob Casey and Tim Scott, who have rushed to adopt the new definition, are doing a grave disservice to the public generally and to historical research specifically.  What is needed is more honest research and discussion, not political mandates as to what recounting of history is allowable.

Yours for free speech, honest scholarship, and accurate history.

David Merlin

Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust 

PO Box 20774 

York  PA 17402 

[email protected]