How I Became a Revisionist

This is an initial exchange with a man who only recently contacted CODOH.

Peter:

Your contribution arrived here yesterday. It's a generous donation and very much appreciated. Sometimes, when I do not know the person well (or, as in our case, not at all) and he or she makes an initial contribution to the work, I wonder what it was that caused that act. I wonder, for example, was there a specific something with CODOH, or Smith’s Report, that caused you to think to contribute at this specific time? It's none of my business, technically, but being the “autobiographer” that I am, I oftentimes find it interesting to note in my own life some passing moment that causes me to make a decision, to have a thought, to do this or do that. Maybe that sort of thing does not interest you, but if it does, it would be interesting to hear “the story.”In any event, thank you again. Much appreciated.

Dear Bradley:

You don't know what can of worms you are opening! There was really no trigger event, but a continuous process which I will attempt to outline for you. I “converted” to the revisionist viewpoint about 10 years ago, shortly after Ernst Zündel was kidnapped. Up to, say, Year 2000 I was, as an urban, secular, libertarian-minded homosexual in his late 20's, quite on board with the political positions of organized Jewry. I began to feel increasingly ill at ease with Jewish behavior in Palestine and the way our media excused it away. It was while trying to resolve this cognitive dissonance that I became acquainted with points of view on the “eternally vexing Jewish question” that the mainstream media were loath to acknowledge—except, of course, to stigmatize them. It was on the Jewish Tribal Review website that I learned of Ernst's scandalous kidnapping and detention. Ingrid Rimland put me on her email list when I sent my first donation to her in response to that very sinister event. The material she then sent me enticed me to probe into the Holocaust narrative and reconsider aspects of it I had never questioned. After my conversion, I got in touch with Professor Faurisson and “Bocage”. Bocage's newsletter informed me of your efforts and predicament. Since I find your approach effective, and your efforts laudable, I decided to contribute to the extent of my modest means. I would like to be an active revisionist one day but, having seen what this entailed for those who stuck their necks out, I plan to be financially independent first, which, alas, won't happen anytime soon. —Pete

Peter:

I don't see a can of worms here, but some interesting stuff. A couple questions (if you don't mind): What “aspects” of the story caught your attention first? In what order — best you can remember? In short, how did the conversion proceed, more or less step by step? To the degree that it does not become a bother for you. But it’s the details that are always the interesting part. I'm not suggesting we make a big deal of this. You must be about 35 now, eh? —B

Bradley:

I don't mind at all, but please be aware that I have to work entirely from memory, as I don't keep a diary or past paper correspondence. The first, general, aspect of the story which spiked my curiosity was a revision made by court historians—a revision which I had never heard being discussed in the mainstream media. As a 10th grader I had read in my history textbook that 4 million persons had been killed in Auschwitz. Then, sometime in 2003, I read in a newspaper article reproduced on the Zundelsite that the number had officially been reduced to 1.5 million. I believe Raul Hilberg's statement that the Holocaust was carried out by telepathy (as quoted by Ingrid in one of her letters) also caught my attention.

As part of my “Jewish” probe I had also been on Lubomyr Prytulak's (now defunct) UKAR website, and got acquainted with some of his investigations on document falsifications. Some of his commentary dealt with WWII pictures of alleged Nazi atrocities, and I found his arguments convincing and eye-opening. I also became aware of Joel Hayward's master’s thesis around that time, and of the scandal it caused—but I don't remember how it registered in my consciousness. At that point, I was sufficiently motivated to read Faurisson's “Écrits Révisionnistes” posted on the AAARGH website (to which the aforementioned UKAR website linked) and I would say this was the stage at which I became ready to study revisionist arguments more systematically.

I'm 39 right now. The terrible middle 🙂 —Pete

Peter:

When I was 39 I was in Hollywood with my ex (my second ex). She was Jewish, she still is, and she was a wonderful lady. The problem for us was that I did not know how to make a living, or did not appear to be interested. She did, she is a child psychologist of some reputation. There were two children when we got together, 3 and 5. There is a photo of me some ten years later reading at the boy's bar mitzvah, with the beanie and all. It was a wonderful afternoon outside on a sloping very large green side yard in the hills above Hollywood Blvd. I would love to have a copy of that photo, but. . . At that time I was still a believer—for another ten years, until 1979. It took me a lot longer than it did you.

In your own notes you do not mention what your original reactions were to the intentional mass “extermination” of homosexuals by the Nazis. And your reaction when you discovered that there is no real evidence for such a program. How about the theater that addressed that issue? I don't recall any of the specific plays. There were a couple three. I think.

It would be good to have such a perspective for Smith's Report. Homosexuals who are revisionists don't like to mix the two. A substantial minority of revisionists have negative to very negative attitudes re the issue. Keith Stimely, for example, who for a time was director of the Institute for Historical Review, was homosexual, but kept it to himself. He did the final proofing for my little book, Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist. He fell to the original Aids epidemic sometime in the early (maybe) 90s.

I lived in Hollywood for 25 years and homosexuals just were not an issue. Jews were not an issue there either, it occurs to me to observe. My conflict with revisionists re Jews is that while Jews are certainly responsible for what Jews do, we, the rest of us, are responsible for what we do and allow them to do with us. Simple example: At Northwestern Butz is condemned on every side by his peers. The overwhelming majority of the professors there are not Jews, but not one who is not a Jew will stand up in public to defend the idea that Butz is right to encourage a free exchange of ideas on the H. story. It's “our” problem. Not “theirs.” Anyhow. . . . —B

Bradley:

The problem with Jews is that they have many endearing qualities :). If they were incapable of charm, wit, flair, ingenuity and, in many cases, plain goodness, there would not be any “Jewish question”—they would simply be universally, and constantly, rejected, and they would never be able to achieve the success and raw power they now have in Western Society, which they have also wielded in other times and places. Note that I write “Jewish question” in quotation marks, borrowing the expression from other anti-judeocentrists (as well as some early Zionists), to refer to a phenomenon official Jewish organizations will designate as “anti-Semitism”—which is really the same animal, but seen from the opposite perspective.

I believe Dr Kevin Macdonald is correct in saying that recurring episodes of Jewish-Gentile hostility stem from competition over resources as laid bare by conflicting survival strategies. I also accept as plausible his hypothesis that traditional Judaism implements a eugenic strategy that tends to favor certain traits (such as IQ and ethnocentrism) to the detriment of others (some of which are, in my view, morality and disinterested reciprocity). I personally tend to view Jews, collectively taken, as an “artificial race with very fluid contours.” “Artificial” because the variety of Jewish phenotypes, which in fact matches human diversity in general, refutes any assertion of common Jewish ethnic origin, biblical mythology notwithstanding (I hope you're not religious!); “race” because Jews are statistically differentiated from the rest of humanity with respect to certain heritable traits, such as IQ; “fluid contours” because, while the halachic definition of Jewishness is categorical and unambiguous (you're a Jew if you descend from a Jewish mother or adhere to Judaism), the subjective sense of belonging to that community can vary enormously depending on circumstances (personal, political….).

In practice, Jewishness comes in concentric circles: a very committed, religious and endogamous core coexists with individuals who may abandon religious practice and intermarry while retaining allegiances to common Jewish causes such as Israel, the Holocaust, the fight against “anti-Semitism,” etc. There are, moreover, Jews who are Jewish in name only and ditch tribal solidarity altogether, Gilad Atzmon being one of them. I agree with you that Gentile cowardice, venality, narcissism and stupidity are as much responsible for the Gentile predicament as Jews are—it takes two to tango, and our judeocracy would not run as such without its hordes of Gentile collaborators (including many who could afford breaking the omerta, such as Donald Trump).

However, I believe there is a phenomenon of which Jews alone are responsible as regards Jewish-Gentile relations, and which is one of intellectual dishonesty and double standards. I have no problem with Jews defending their perceived tribal interests; I do have a problem with Jews lecturing the Gentile majority of a certain country on the moral necessity to become a minority and effectively lose political control (or the appearance thereof) all the while ensuring that Israel, a state created by the most fulsome means (and patently fraudulent as a majority of Jews continue to live outside of it, contrary to the promise the early Zionists made to various governments), retains its majoritarian Jewish character. There are many other similar instances of double standards (take Holocaust-denial laws, for example), all couched in humanistic and universalistic terms, which enforce Jewish privilege and which must be, in my view, denounced as the swindles that they are.

I originally believed in the mass extermination of homosexuals by the Nazis, as in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies. In the ‘90s I attended meetings of a GLBT-rights group at university, and the implied directive was to stress our victimological status alongside other “victimized” groups (women, Jews, visible minorities, etc.). I resented the preeminence given to the Jewish narrative, as well as our obligation to align with feminist positions, many of which I didn't agree with. We gays officially belonged to those who had a right to be angry (according to the prevalent political correctness, anyway), but we needed constant Jewish reference and certification to maintain that status. “Their” victimary status was granted, self-evident; “ours” had to be re-asserted all the time. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth. It made me realize two things about myself: 1) I don't mind airing my grievances, but soliciting pity wouldn't be my strategy, and 2) I would never submit to groupthink again. I prefer to retain my intellectual independence, regardless of whether my positions fit other people's preconceptions or not.

I had already decided to be a lone rider by the time I got interested in things Jewish. Regarding Nazi-vs.-Homo plays, I do recall the play “Bent” being turned into a film starring Mick Jagger, but the reviews were not good and the synopsis didn't interest me, so I didn't view it. I did, however, read Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners and see Spielberg's The Last Days and, to my shame, “bought” them both lock, stock and barrel (funny how psychological conditioning can make you blind to certain details).

When did I stop believing in the Nazi extermination of homosexuals? I can't recall precisely. My belief in that detail probably began to erode along with the Jewish part. I remember reading an article by Juergen Graf which disputed the claim, as well as the transcript of an interview one Jack Wyckoff gave to Ernst Zuendel. I felt satisfied with their conclusions inasmuch as their research had the appearance of reasonableness. Admittedly, I didn't investigate this aspect any further.

I'm fully aware that many, if not most, revisionists are hostile to homosexuals—at least to homosexuals conforming to a certain pop-culture image and associated with (now semi-official) rituals of controversial taste, such as pride marches, etc. A reciprocal hostility is common amongst most homosexuals, who have many Jewish community leaders and who generally invoke the Holocaust to advance their political agendas. All I can say is that they are all entitled to their opinions and sentiments as much as I am to mine. My aim is not to please members of one group or another, but to fight for the right to state my truth. The revisionist opinion is an opinion on a matter of fact; it is not an opinion on a set of values. My homosexuality is a fact. That people tend to accept as fact a version of events which conforms to, or justifies, their values is hardly surprising; hence a large percentage of National Socialist revisionists and a large percentage of culturally Marxist homosexuals.

Since I have decided to reject groupthink and identity politics altogether, however, I will not let this apparent dichotomy suppress one aspect of my personality or the other. As far as you seeing the light later in life than I did, keep in mind that the Internet did not exist in 1979 (as well as a good part of the current revisionist canon). It goes without saying that it is thanks to the work of my revisionist predecessors that I myself assimilated the revisionist viewpoint. —Pete

Peter:

This is good stuff. The Human Face of Holocaust Revisionism. My first inclination is to want to use it for Smith's Report. In the end I never know what I will use until the moment is at hand. —B