Jean-Claude Pressac: In Memoriam

On February 17th, 2001 I drove my rental car from Le Vesinet – where I was visiting friends – down to La Ville du Bois, about a two hour drive on a nice, sunny afternoon to drop in at Jean-Claude Pressac's pharmacy and hope to find and meet him at the close of the day's business. It was Saturday and I calculated that I might succeed better by not calling in advance.

It worked wonderfully.

He closed the pharmacy about seven o'clock and I arrived about fifteen minutes beforehand, introduced myself to a clerk who then brought me to Monsieur Pressac. I began in English, but he preferred German, since my French is almost non-existent. Immediately, I made reference to my friend David Cole's visit to the pharmacy some years earlier and that I would like a few minutes, if possible.

Then I showed him a copy of our Theses & Dissertations Press book Dissecting the Holocaust, but I quickly opened to the Index and pointed to the many references to “Jean-Claude Pressac,” thinking that he, like the rest of us, might be influenced positively out of an Ego-interest – he was indeed!

I told him I had an extra copy in case he might want to purchase it, and he paid me in French Francs. I recall asking to see the pharmacy and he showed me around, then excused himself to call his girl friend and invited me to join them for dinner – to my pleasant surprise, of course.

His girl friend arrived wearing a short fur coat and nicely dressed, while he was already attired in a dark suit. I then followed them several kilometers to their home, parked my car, and then rode with them to, I thought, a restaurant, but we arrived fifteen minutes

later at the nice but modest home of a retired French military professor where a full five-course French meal – sumptuous and most delicious – was served over the next two hours. Most of the conversation was in French with Pressac occasionally explaining something to me in German. We men toured the host's wine cellar where I saw an enormous collection of fine and ordinary wines.

At one point during the meal, Pressac brought out the Dissecting the Holocaust book and showed it to his host, particularly pointing to the Index entries for Pressac himself.

I must say that the entire evening was quite enjoyable and the Pressac and his friends were most hospitable to me and made me feel as comfortable as possible. I departed around midnight from their home, heading back to Le Vesinet, fully intending to visit again one day to discuss our book.

Of course, Jean-Claude Pressac was a controversial figure for his research and writing what Professor Faurisson calls “the Big Book”. I got my copy of this “Big Book” and worked through it over a two-month period of intense reading and concluded that Pressac had obviously produced a major work that his sponsors – the Klarsfelds – seemed not to have read, or at least not to have read with careful understanding, since Pressac's “Big Book” contained enormously important documents and photographs that caused great problems for the traditional Jewish Holocaust Story.

I am grateful to Pressac and his friends for their warm, French hospitality shown to me – a complete stranger who simply showed up unannounced – on that Saturday evening in February 2001. His contributions to revising the Jewish Holocaust Story will, without doubt, continue to be felt for decades to come.