A Victory for the Revisionists?

The cover of the June 27-July 3 edition of L'Evénement du jeudi includes a picture of Abbe Pierre and has as its headline: “The Holocaust: a victory for the Revisionists.” Inside the journal some 10 pages are devoted to this story [p. 16-25]; as well, there are references to it appearing on pages 3, 5, 10 and 13.

All the articles are uniformly hostile to the Revisionists. The latter are never allowed to speak for themselves, and the words that are put into their mouths are usually either distorted or [heavily] edited.

The publisher explains that the first [of a string] of Revisionist victories has been to co-opt the use of the term “Revisionists” appearing on its front cover and to have it be clearly identified with the topic under discussion [i.e., the Holocaust]. The term “deniers” would not have been as effective. It is also conceded that the Revisionists have enjoyed such a huge success that, in the opposing camp [i.e., among the Exterminationists], “disarray and confusion are in a tug of war” and that “panic has invaded the ranks of the democrats” [p. 23].

Simone Veil reckons that the Gayssot Law (a basically anti-revisionist law) ought to be struck down. While Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Bernard-Henri Levy and Pierre-Andre Taguieff are no longer sure what should be done.

Says Pierre Vidal-Naquet, he who in the past had me hauled before the courts: “I am ready to kill Faurisson, but not to have him legally charged.”[*] As for Abbe Pierre, Vidal-Naquet sees but one solution: to ridicule Abbe Pierre, to “reduce him to a caricature and delegitimatize him.”

The philosopher Alain Finkielkraut is “enraged” [sic], while Jean-Francois Kahn is asking himself questions about the constant barrage of accusations being leveled at the Revisionists in the media: “What's the purpose of this delirious witch-hunt, this cyclical McCarthyism which consists of twice a week unmasking and hounding and dredging up a new 'revisionist' or 'denier'?” He adds: “We are organizing a lynching of Revisionists on a weekly basis.”

P.-A. Taguieff, meanwhile, concedes that “Some big-name historians have been rattled by Faurisson.”

Our opponents are convinced that for over fifteen years Pierre Guillaume, his associates, and myself have been following a clever game plan. What's really been happening is quite different: the Revisionists had made some important discoveries; those have been their only true victories. For, [were reminders needed] we have not been able, at least in France, to arrange to debate our adversaries or to have our voices heard in the media.

Indeed, the very day that L'Evénement du jeudi trumpeted “a victory for the Revisionists” a court in Bordeaux convicted a bookseller, one Jean-Luc Lundi, a father of eleven children, for the display and sale of Revisionist books and sentenced him to a month in jail (suspended) and a fine of 5,000 francs. In addition to the bookseller being placed on probation for five years, the court also ordered the destruction of the books seized in the raid on his bookshop: 52 copies of both Annales d'histoire revisionniste and the remarkable series, Revue d'histoire revisionniste. One may well be taken aback by such measures, since neither publication had ever been banned; at most, an injunction served by Pierre Joxe on July 2, 1990, had forbidden that the sale of the two publications be advertised.

“And what if Abbe Pierre was right?” In Paris, that question has just appeared on posters, etched in yellow letters set on a black background. The censorship-friendly folks at L'Evénement du jeudi are perturbed by the public display of such posters, as well as by the Revisionists' use of the Internet. They quite realize that, for them, the real challenge [to their orthodox views on the Holocaust] will be driven partly by the influence of Abbe Pierre and partly by the power of the Internet.

Two trials, convened on the basis of the Fabius-Gayssot law at the following address, the XVIIe chambre du tribunal correctional de Paris, at 4, boulevard du Palais, are slated for:

Tuesday, September 24, 1996, at 1:30 p.m., against Me. Eric Delcroix, for his book on Thought Police versus Revisionism [La Police de la pensée contre le revisionnisme];

Friday, November 15, 1996, at 1:30 p.m. against myself for my press release of April 19, 1996, to Agence France Presse relative to the Garaudy/Abbe Pierre Affair; my last conviction occurred on June 13, 1995, because of my book Reply to Jean-Claude Pressac [Reponse à Jean-Claude Pressac].

These two works are still available from: Diffusion RHR, BP 122, 92704, Colombes Cedex (La Police de la pensée: 90 francs; Reponse à Jean Claude Pressac: 80 francs).

© June 27, 1996

[*]

Interviewed in Paris on December 14, 1992, by a correspondent with the American network National Public Radio regarding my December 9th conviction, Pierre Vidal-Naquet had responded in English: “I hate Faurisson. If I could do it, I would personally kill him.”