Victims

To the impartial observer, a testimony by an individual who belonged to a group allegedly targeted by the Nazis for extermination does not always sound absolutely convincing, but who would wish to insinuate that those who had such terrible experiences during the war are not telling the truth? In the eyes of the public, the Holocaust survivors have become sanctified, indubitable, and irreproachable. It is precisely in this respect that skepticism, criticism and scrutiny have become most important. This section deals with persons who were on the side of the alleged victims and who either confirmed or denied the claimed events – or sometimes both. What are these testimonies worth?

Abraham Bomba, Barber of Treblinka

I have now seen the complete nine and one half hour documentary, Shoah, which purports to be “An Oral History of the Holocaust.” It was produced, directed, narrated and is now being promoted by Claude Lanzmann. From the newspapers I gather that Lanzmann is an assimilated French Jew who speaks neither Hebrew nor Yiddish. He…

Shoah

Shoah. Directed by Claude Lanzmann. Produced by Les Films Aleph, Historia Films with the French Ministry of Culture. Cinematographers: Dominique Chapuls, Jimmy Glasberg, William Lubehansky. Editors: Ziva Postec, Anna Ruiz. Running time: Part I, 4 hours, 33 minutes. Part II, 4 hours, 50 minutes. Shoah is a Hebrew word which means catastrophe. It has become…

Shoah

Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust. The Complete Text of the Film, by Claude Lanzmann. Preface by Simone de Beauvoir. Translated by A. Whitelaw and W. Byron. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985, xii + 200 pp. hb, $11.95, ISBN 0-394-55142-7. Since Shoah the movie rolled on for a seemingly interminable nine and a half…

The Survivor & War and Love

The Survivor, by Jack Eisner. New York: Wm. Morrow, 1980, 320 pp., ISBN 0-688-03741-0. War and Love, directed by Moshe Mizrahi, screenplay by Abby Mann, produced by Jack Eisner, released by Cannon Group,1985. Running time 112 min. In late 1980 I was contacted by a Chicago TV station with a proposal that I appear to…

Lessons of the Mengele Affair

With the possible exceptions of Hitler and Himmler, no man has been so vilified in recent years as the personification of Nazi evil as Dr. Josef Mengele. The Mengele legend was the basis for two novels that Hollywood turned into popular movies: William Goldman's The Marathon Man and Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil. In…

Azriel Eisenberg Presents The Greatest Sob Story Ever Told (with a Cast of Millions)

The Lost Generation: Children in the Holocaust, by Azriel Eisenberg, The Pilgrim Press, 380 pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-8298-0498-6. Azriel Eisenberg strikes again! In The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1983, I reviewed Eisenberg's Witness to the Holocaust. Now Eisenberg, Holocaustomaniac par excellence, has produced a companion volume to that egregious opus. So here I am,…

The Periodic Table

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Schocken Books, 1984, 233pp, ISBN 0-8052-3929-4. In the deluge of printed matter which competes today for our time and attention as well as our dollars, one is required to use all the selective skills at his disposal to discriminate and…

The Sleight-of-Hand of Simon Wiesenthal: “Falso in Uno, Falso in Omnibus”

For many years Simon Wiesenthal has made a highly successful career for himself as the world’s foremost “Nazi hunter.” The American mass media have elevated him to secular sainthood and the U.S. Congress awarded him a special gold medal. In reality Wiesenthal is a proven liar. The most infamous example was his charge that an…

Witness to the Holocaust

Witness to the Holocaust, by Azriel Eisenberg, The Pilgrim Press, 649pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-8298-0432-3 Witness to the Holocaust is a collection of “eyewitness accounts of a brutal period in history,” compiled and edited by Dr. Azriel Eisenberg, “a leading Jewish scholar,” who has provided introductions to each of the 27 chapters and to many of…

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