Breaking the Spell: The Kollerstrom Story

“To deny the danger posed by the Holocaust religion and its followers is to be complicit in a growing crime against humanity and against every possible human value.”—Gilad Atzmon

Nick Kollerstrom is not a new name for revisionists. One can find his writings lately in our well known quarterly journal for free historical inquiry, Inconvenient History, as well as his book Breaking the Spell, published by Castle Hill Publishers. But like many another who has dared to openly express his doubts and findings about the orthodox narrative of the Shoah, he has paid dearly for doing so.

In 2008 he was expelled from University College, London (UCL), removing Kollerstrom’s honorary fellowship in April 2008 after articles of his appeared on this website. In 2007, Kollerstrom wrote that one million, not six million, Jews had died in the Holocaust, and that gas chambers had operated in Auschwitz only for the purpose of disinfestation of clothing and bedding.

Kollerstrom did not do what many serious revisionists tend to do; use a nom de plume to write under because of the known moral deprecation that one can and will sustain when exposing revisionist ideas to the academic community and the general public, risking to lose every bit of respect and credibility and in worse cases, compromising one’s physical freedom in countries where incarceration is common for those who dare to ask “uncomfortable historical questions” with regard to the Holocaust narrative.

It is important to notice that Kollerstrom had a full academic life and was an important figure as a science historian. Among his well known works is his book Newton’s Forgotten Lunar Theory: His Contribution to the Quest for Longitude, published in 2000. He is also a well recognized academic who had been active in political campaigns in the UK since the 1980s, from questioning the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons to becoming a Green Party candidate in one of the UK’s counties in the late 80s.

He was also involved in movements to find the truth about 9/11 and opposing the Iraq war. He was not new to controversy, political activism and debate.

But breaking the spell that many true believers are under when it comes to the Holocaust orthodox narrative raised the bar in unimaginable ways even for him. He soon learned how deep the taboo was… He tells us in his book, Breaking the Spell: The Holocaust, Myth & Reality:

“I might as well write Britain’s only Revisionist textbook, on what has to be the most deeply forbidden topic in our modern world. Just say that word, ‘the Holocaust,’ and people shudder – as indeed they are supposed to; but by the same token it is, I affirm, the most important topic in the world for us to find out about. We need to find out how to discuss it calmly, how to respect different viewpoints, and what are the primary sources we should be consulting. Can one hope to avoid abuse and insult while doing so?”

Well, I hate to spoil this great idealistic hope but I seriously doubt that the taboo around the Holocaust and its implications will go away soon…it would be even naïve to say that “yes”, we can discuss the Holocaust controversy in a calm way ; even though I agree with Kollerstrom on this ideal and it should be that way, just like we can discuss any other historico-scientific subject openly, but that would only happen if this historical event we call the Holocaust was given a real scientific treatment by all historians, and not as one surrounded by pseudo-religious beliefs. We will not be able to discuss the Holocaust in a calm way; it will not happen as long as taboo surrounds the topic and while 14 European countries now forbid by law any and all contradiction of the approved version of a historical event that should be treated like any other historical narrative, however tragic. We won’t be able to discuss it calmly, not while the Holocaust remains treated by some as a religious concept, stripping it of all scientific truth and logic.

In Breaking the Spell, Kollerstrom confesses:

“After somewhat over a decade of quiet academic research, my life changed rather abruptly as I became ethically damned, thrown out of polite, decent groups, banned from forums and denounced in newspapers, with half my friends not speaking to me any more – while the other half still would, provided I kept off “that awful subject.”…. The damnation cast upon me was ostensibly political – people were suddenly averring that I was “far right,” and I had to try and figure out what that meant and why it was being applied to me – whereas no-one seemed interested in what I had actually done, namely synthesize a couple of chemical investigations concerning residual wall-cyanide taken from World War II labour camps. The damnation cast upon me did not require any opinion from me to confirm it – I was merely informed”

And he continues:

“Going into my local, or even my gym, I felt as if some Mark of Cain had been branded onto my forehead. I had done something so awful that we could not even discuss the matter. The Mediaeval crime of Heresy was back alive and well, even if I was not going to be tortured to recant. From The Observer to Private Eye, from the Metro to the Morning Star, from the Jewish Chronicle to the Evening Standard, readers perused the shocking news about my awful heresy, with me being allowed little or no right of reply.”

So the saga continues for us, the doubters, the free thinkers, the ones who will not remain quiet and quiescently accepting the myths, the exaggerations, the lies and the imprecations that are the greater part of what makes up the orthodox Holocaust narrative.

On a happy note I can tell you that Breaking the Spell has been a successful book and a second edition has been published and I have the honor of working on a Spanish edition that soon will be available and published, of course by Castle Hill Publishers, which is arguably the most important press on scholarly work on the revisionist scene.

I will keep us all informed on Nick’s adventures into the rabbit hole of revisionism.