Letters

Impressive Scholarship

Having just finished reading my first issue of the Journal, I want to tell you that I am very impressed. In its overall scholarship, it is the equal of any serious academic journal.

Both "R.P." and "M.B." make good points in their letters in the Jan.-Feb. Journal. issues such as the threat to America's middle class, the perils of unrestricted immigration, the Jewish role in history, the seemingly endless demonization of Third Reich Germany, and how and why our government involves itself in one insane foreign war after another, all deserve thoughtful treatment in the Journal's pages.

Historical revisionism is a burgeoning movement, gathering momentum. Keep up the good work.

M. R.
San Francisco

Distracted Commemoration

I hope you all commemorated the Holocaust Days of Remembrance more leisurely than did our Israeli brethren, distracted repeatedly from their solemn contemplation of man's inhumanity to Jews by the need to strafe an ambulance and shell a refugee camp.

What's with these goyim, anyway?

J. T.
Passaic, New Jersey

Pieces of an Extraordinary Puzzle

I was greatly impressed by the article in the Jan.-Feb. issue about the Spanish Inquisition and the "Jewish question" in Spain. Brian Chalmers has clearly done a tremendous amount of research, and he supports his conclusions admirably. You are fortunate to have found an author who is so knowledgeable and also willing to draw unfashionable, "anti-Semitism" conclusions.

I, for one, would be delighted to see more articles of this kind: carefully researched accounts of Jewish behavior and its influence on historical events. Important as it is to study the Holocaust, articles like Chalmers' are perhaps even more important because they give a historical foundation for understanding the behavior of Jews today. And is not the behavior of Jews today what gives historical revisionism more than merely academic significance?

Although a thorough account of what the Nazis did – and did not do – is an important element in understanding Jewish behavior, it is just part of the puzzle. Perhaps Chalmers' can be persuaded to give us a few more brilliantly-researched pieces of this extraordinary puzzle.

C. J.
New York City

Raging Battle

As you may know, the battle for historical truth is raging on what has been dubbed the "information superhighway." "Alt.revisionism" is the name of an Internet newsgroup in which both pro-revisionist and anti-revisionist viewpoints are posted daily. It has been estimated that as many as 25,000 people regularly read the posts in the newsgroup.

W.R.
[by Internet]
Oldbridge, N.J.

Biased History Teacher

Our history teacher recently passed out to our tenth grade class a paper attacking Holocaust deniers published by the AntiDefamation League of B'nai B'rith. Until I read this, I hadn't known that anyone challenged the idea of the Holocaust. Now I have begun researching the revisionist view. Whether you are right or not, you make a strong argument.

The teacher, who is Jewish, also called you jerks, liars and neo-Nazi activists who want to ruin the Jewish faith. Seriously. And I can get the entire class to confirm this. He also talked to us about abortion, telling us that he is pro choice. But he sure isn't when it comes to the Holocaust.

It was unfair of our teacher to pass out such a blatantly biased paper that outrightly bashes the IHR, and wrong to bombard us with his emotional personal feelings, insulting our ability to think for ourselves. Along with several colleagues, I am considering how we might file a class action lawsuit against this teacher for his violation of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. I would like to know what you think we should do.

B. E.
[by Internet]
Tampa, Fla.

A Young American in the Dachau Trials

Reading Innocent at Dachau took me back 50 years to my own days at Dachau. Actually, I've read and re-read Mr. Halow's book six times, and I enjoyed it even on the sixth reading.

My first Army assignment was to a War Crimes detachment at Ludwigsburg as a military court member [judge]. Among the cases we tried was the Borkum Island affair, which involved seven crew members of an American B-17 bomber who had been beaten and killed after their plane was shot down. After that we tried two or three minor cases, which took less then a week to complete. After about a month Ludwigsburg was shut down, and we were transferred to Dachau.

There were five US military courts in session there at the time, including our own. I became disgruntled with the manner in which our court operated. For example, one fellow court member [judge], Lt. Col. Burchem, would write on a routing slip "Guilty. Hang the individual." Without question, his actions were unjust and extremely biased.

When I spoke with him about this, he replied that the investigators were very thorough, and would not have concluded that the defendants deserved to be hanged unless they were guilty. When I informed the president of the court about this, he seemed to dismiss the matter as a joke.

I then went to see the chief of administration of the War Crimes detachment at Dachau to get another duty assignment. He okayed my transfer to Headquarters Camp Dachau, where Col. Frances Fainter was in charge. My new duty was as Provost Marshal. As I recall, this was during the latter half of 1946. After my wife, our sixth-month-old daughter and my mother arrived, we were given quarters on the "SS Strasse."

Approximately 42,000 prisoners were being held in the Dachau camp, including about a hundred German generals and 3,000 alleged war criminals, including the notorious Ilse Koch. Most were German prisoners of war of various ranks who were to be "denazified" by the German authorities. I was positive that Ilse Koch, the "Bitch of Buchenwald," had become impregnated by a cook from compound 3. Our informants reported that he had gained access to the compound where she was being held by crawling through a heating tunnel.

It is very unfortunate that I've lost most of my papers from those days during my 33 years of military service, and owing in part to a tornado that vacuumed away many of my personal papers into "the blue."

Clifford R. Merrill
Colonel, US Army (ret.)
Fort Collins, Col.

Revisionist Scholarship Denied

The enemy simply refuses to grant the existence of such a thing as revisionist scholarship on the Holocaust issue. It is all dismissed as propaganda, or as part and parcel of some political agenda. This is repeated in every conceivable way, but it so flatly wrong that their hysteria is readily understandable.

A. G.
Washington, DC

Notable Exception

Vladimir Lenin, founder of Soviet Russia, died in 1924. In spite of the catastrophic failure of the Communist experiment, he is still honored with a great mausoleum in Moscow. Joseph Stalin, who killed vastly more people than Hitler, is remembered by many Russians as a great military leader and the builder of a powerful state. His grave in Moscow is decorated with flowers. Not long ago Georgia republic premier Eduard Sheverdnadze paid tribute to the wartime Soviet dictator, laying a wreath at his birthplace.

China's tyrannical Communist leader, Mao Zedong – whose victims outnumber even Stalin's – is honored with a magnificent mausoleum in Beijing. Grateful Spaniards gather annually at the imposing burial monument of Caudillo Francisco Franco at the "Valley of the Fallen." Every year many people come to view the magnificent grave of Napoleon in Paris. Mussolini's mortal remains are respectfully interned in a family crypt in Italy. In Romania people honor the memory of their nation's wartime leader, Marshal Ion Antonescu, with even the country's parliament paying tribute.

Japan's World War II emperor, Hirohito, who died in 1989, is remembered with honor. Even the nation's wartime political premier, Hideki Tojo – who was hanged in 1948 as a war criminal during the US occupation – is not dishonored. At the Yasukuni shrine, prominent Japanese political figures regularly pay homage to the memory of their country's wartime dead, including Tojo.

A notable exception is Adolf Hitler. Endlessly vilified as a modern-day secular Satan and the personification of evil, there is no public monument anywhere to him or his memory. Why is Hitler unique? Is this special treatment due to the intense, seemingly endless hatred of his enemies, or is it an expression of the profound impact and durable fascination he still exerts on the world?

P. M.
Spokane, Wash.

Shermer's Flawed Comparison

During the Holocaust debate (reported in the Jan.-Feb. 1996 Journal, p. 29), Dr. Michael Shermer equated Dr. Robert Faurisson's often-repeated demand for "just one proof" of a Nazi homicidal gas chamber with a Creationist demand for one fossil to prove evolution.

This flawed comparison shows a lack of clear thinking. Contrary to what Shermer implies, Faurisson does not say that the existence of a wartime Nazi gas chamber would prove the Holocaust. The comparable analogy would be a Creationist call for just one fossil to prove the existence of fossils. Even so, just as a single fossil does not prove evolution, neither would the existence of a Nazi homicidal gas chamber prove that there was a German wartime policy to exterminate Jews.

In fact, if the Germans had developed "gas chamber" technology for killing masses of people, the existence of millions of Jewish survivors at the end of the war would suggest that there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews.

Neil Martin
Los Angeles

No Gas Chambers Found

From my point of view, Theodore O'Keefe's article in the July-August 1995 issue, "The Liberation of the Camps: Facts and Lies," is the most accurate I have seen to date on this subject.

During the final months of the war, I was a squad leader with Company G, 121st Infantry, 8th Infantry Division, attached to the Ninth US Army. After the December 1944 "Battle of the Bulge," until the fighting ended on May 8, 1945, we pushed across northern Germany.

As we made our way from Aachen to Schwerin (some 35 miles beyond the Elbe river), we liberated concentration camps and prisons. However, we failed to uncover any gas chambers, although we were the first on the scene and tried, when we had the time, to look for them. We were indeed curious. What struck me as odd at the time was that not one camp prisoner could direct us to a gas chamber. We were shown decontamination rooms, but no affirmation that they had been used to gas people.

We also saw the results of aerial bombings, which were part of the Allied policy of total war. Just as appalling as the concentration camps were our grisly encounters with body parts of dead Germans, including children, that we sometimes found in rubble when we had to dig in a defensive position.

Richard Gagnon
Whitinsville, Mass.

Never Believed

I am a disabled veteran of World War II, and I never for one minute believed the Holocaust fraud. I went through Dachau, and I said then that it was fake. I met too many German soldiers and people to ever believe such an atrocious lie.

God bless you.

V. S.
Hillsboro, Mo.

Democracy Wanted

Here in Germany, and especially in Bavaria where I live, no one is ready publicly to discuss your arguments about the murder of the Jews. Here the so-called Holocaust lie is punished with imprisonment. Oh God, what I would give to live in your country, where there is a democracy like we should have here in Germany.

God protect you and all your friends.

[by internet from Germany]

Gratitude

I have been following the IHR's progress for a couple of years now, and although I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said before, I would like to express my gratitude for the work you do. My generation, which lives under constant social pressure to accept falsehoods without question, will require only time to continue the work that you and your colleagues initiated.

J. K. R.
[by Internet from Washington state]

Stalin's Holocaust

When speaking about "the Holocaust," we should ask "which one?" Most people refer to "the Holocaust" as if the wartime treatment of Europe's Jews is unique in the history of man's inhumanity to man.

Actually, there were two great "Holocausts" in mid-20th-century Europe. The first of these – little known in America today – was the mass famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine imposed by Soviet dictator Stalin, in which some eight million people were methodically starved to death. In his carefully researched study, Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), historian Robert Conquest estimates that about seven million perished in the Soviet "dekulakization" and forced collectivization campaign of 1929-1932. In addition, "about seven million plus" lost their lives in the imposed Ukraine famine of 1932-33, of whom about three million were children.

"The total peasant dead as a result of the dekulakization and famine [was] about 14.5 million," concludes Conquest, who adds that these "are conservative figures." This is a toll greater than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I. Not only was the Ukrainian "Holocaust" greater in scope than the Jewish one, but the first served as a precedent for the second.

Similarly, Hitler did not invent concentration camps, nor did he innovate uprooting and deporting masses of people in rail freight cars. When the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, the Soviets had already been operating a vast network of Gulag forced labor and concentration camps for more than a dozen years.

German history professor Ernst Nolte argues that the wellknown brutal actions of Third Reich Germany were introduced at least in part as countermeasures responding to inhumane Soviet policies that threatened all of Europe. "Twentieth century world history is only understandable," he insists, "when one is willing to acknowledge the connection made by the enemies of Bolshevism between a fear of annihilation and an intention of annihilation, and to recognize the simple truth that the statements of anti-Communists [including the National Socialists] about the misdeeds of Bolshevism were, in fact, well grounded. (From Nolte's book Streitpunkte, quoted in the Nov.-Dec. 1993 Journal, p. 40.)

In accord with the wishes of powerful interests, history is portrayed today in a very one-sided way – a distortion that is all more dangerous because Communism is not dead.

L. R.
Lethbridge, Canada

Preposterous Fables

Thank you for seeking out and publicizing historical truth. Over the years I have purchased, read and studied a number of your books, including Joseph Halow's Innocent at Dachau and James Bacque's Other Losses.

During the war I flew with the US air force that bombed Germany, and I know what shape the country was in. I also know why piles of dead bodies were found by American soldiers in the final weeks of the war. Some of these lost their lives in Allied bombings, and many others were indirect casualties of the war as victims of epidemic and starvation.

It pains me that many people persist in believing the most preposterous imaginings, about not just the Nazis but the German people generally. For example, the lie of the Six Million is permanently inscribed in the Jewish chapel at the nearby Air Force Academy.

Another horrendous fable is the claim that the Germans killed prisoners in gas chambers in the Dachau concentration camp. The truth about this particular matter is established in the memoir-study by Joseph Halow, who obviously has no axe to grind.

And yet, my own brother-in-law, who was an infantryman with the US Army's 45th Division unit that liberated the Dachau camp, tells me: "We saw the gas chambers, and we saw where they [the Germans] cut the prisoners' throats and collected the blood." Actually, he wouldn't know a gas chamber from a cow barn, and neither would I. Anyway, that prisoners would have been killed using both methods concurrently is itself illogical.

I told him of Halow's charge, based on declassified US Army records, that American troops massacred the camp's German guards on liberation day. He responded by saying, "That was 'E' Company," at least confirming something he had never previously mentioned.

J. R. Arter,
Col. USAF (ret.)
Colorado Springs, Col.

Lipstadt's Double Standard

Deborah Lipstadt, a vociferous critic of those who are skeptical of Holocaust extermination claims, has received enthusiastic praise for her anti-revisionist book, Denying the Holocaust [reviewed in the Nov.-Dec. 1993 and Sept.Oct. 1995 Journal.] Throughout her strident and spiteful polemic, she condemns certain revisionists as evil racists because they wish to preserve the integrity of the White race and European culture. The hidden "agenda" of the Institute for Historical Review, she falsely asserts (p. 142), is "to rehabilitate national socialism, inculcate anti-semitism and racism, and oppose democracy."

Lipstadt's complaint is hypocrisy. As it turns out – she is no less concerned about preserving her own people's identity than are those whom she maligns. In the book Embracing the Stranger: Intermarriage and the Future of the American Jewish Community (Basic Books, 1995, p. 18), Jewish author and educator Ellen Jaffe McClain reports:

Although people like Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University professor who has written and lectured widely on Holocaust denial, have exhorted Jewish parents to just say no to intermarriage [with non-Jews], much the way they expect their children not to take drugs, a large majority of [Jewish] parents (and more than a few rabbis) are unable to lay down opposition to intermarriage as a strict operating principle.

In a 1991 article cited by McClain (p. 231), Lipstadt expresses the view that Jewish parents should flatly tell their children: "I expect you to marry Jews." While Lipstadt urges Jews to marry only Jews to preserve the Jewish nation, she condemns non-Jews who manifest similar concern for the survival of their own peoplehood. As Jewish scholar Israel Shahak points out in his brilliant work, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, this hypocritical double standard is deeply rooted in the Jewish Talmudic tradition.

Paul Grubach
Lyndhurst, Ohio

Causing a Commotion

First off, 6 million of my Jewish ancestors as well as 24 million other minorities on the 66 questions and answer list, you contradicted yourself. It angers me to call me, others that survived the holocaust and others that believe the holocaust went on. Second of all, I don't see how you can distribute this when we're trying to make peace and you're causing a commotion …

[signed]
An angry Jewish teenager
[mailed anonymously]

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