- The recent attempted defrocking of a Catholic Bishop
on a charge of "Holocaust denial" brings to the fore once again
the need to review the history of World War II in a properly detached
fashion. A horrible truth is that more than 55 million people died in
that war and the overwhelming majority of them were not Jews. That is
the holocaust we must all remember. In addition to those deaths, World
War II caused the virtual destruction of Western Europe, and gave newborn
communism, the invention of Jewish politicians in Russia, its chance to
prove it did not work. The victory went to the best and most determined
killers, and various victims tell their stories in their own ways. That
is a dubious privilege of all those who suffered greatly. It gave no one
the right to a story that cannot be examined in the pursuit of truth and
honest scholarship.
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- Yet, examining the official story of the Holocaust is
a crime in Germany. It is not a crime in the United States as such, but
one historian, Ernst Zundel, married to an American citizen, was summarily
picked up in the United States, sent to Canada and imprisoned without
conviction of any crime. He was then bundled up and sent to Germany, but
moved covertly, not through normal legal processes of extradition.
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- In Germany Zundel has been tried in a German court and
imprisoned, but he has not been allowed to present arguments in his own
defense, and in fact his attorney has been imprisoned for attempting
to enter such defenses in the court record. Zundel shares this fate with
two others who have been sent to Germany from other European countries,
and a move is now afoot to make Holocaust denial a crime throughout the
European Community. If that is accomplished, the European Community will
have prohibited any scholar to examine any part of the official Holocaust
story. To do so will result in imprisonment with a trial in which the
defendant can submit no evidence of the history explored and the findings
made, regardless of how factually demonstrable they may be.
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- Much of the controversy stems from the fact that some
elements of the story have simply been proven false. For example, the
gruesome tale of human skin having been used to make leather was dropped
after it proved impossible to provide any evidence. It is also reasonably
clear that there were no gas furnaces for extermination at Auschwitz,
and that part of the story has been dropped. General George S. Patton,
then in charge of occupied Germany, disbelieved several aspects of the
story and may have been killed because of his outspoken comments. Disturbing
stories have emerged that confessions at Nuremberg were obtained by torture.
The Red Cross, which had access to the camps in question, has been circumspect
in its comments, but has yet to bless the official version of the Holocaust.
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- The numbers really need to be reexamined: The six million
figure commonly used in the official story first appeared as the number
of displaced Jews in 1919, before Hitler came along, and before the carnage
of World War II. The plaques at Auschwitz tell an evolving story. As reported
by observers, the first plaque at Auschwitz said 4 million dead. That
was replaced by one that said 3 million dead. That was replaced by a plaque
that said 2 million dead. The plaque now reads 1 million dead. Those changes
reduce the number of victims at all reported sites to less than 3 million.
Serious scholarly research obviously is needed to confirm the number,
if that indeed is possible. _See Endnote_
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- The problem with the debate as pursued is that it does
not honor the dead. Over fifty million innocent people died in this carnage.
Concentration camps in Germany, Poland, the Ukraine and elsewhere do
credit to neither the Hitler government in Germany nor the Stalin government
in Russia, or their numerous local collaborators. US and allied carpet
bombing of German cities such as Dresden deserve equal opprobrium. Millions
of young men and women in uniform died or were wounded in those engagements,
and many parts of the story have yet to be accurately chronicled.
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- The history of Jewish migration to Palestine needs to
be understood to have a complete picture of what happened to Jews at the
end of World War II. Many were bundled by occupying authorities into
former concentration camps and other facilities, some taken by expelling
German residents. Then many Jews were "offered" the take- it-or-leave-it
chance to migrate to Palestine.
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- There is no question that, as chronicled by Jewish writers,
the official Holocaust story has been used and abused by the Zionists
to justify their establishment of a Jewish national home in already fully
occupied Palestine. The story has been used continuously ever since World
War II to justify or thwart criticism of their continuing confiscation
of Palestinian lands and their systematic killing, imprisonment, harassment
and confinement of the Palestinian people. Even a prominent Jewish historian,
Ilan Pappe, has described this entire process as ethnic cleansing that
in international law is a war crime.
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- It has become increasingly clear that doubts about the
official Holocaust story will not go away and, in fact, are growing. The
reactions are perhaps a worst case version of "Methinks thou dost
protest too much," generated in part by the fact that the official
version of the Holocaust is the only story in human history that cannot
be examined. Very questionable "hate crime" laws are being pursued
in Europe, Canada and the United States in a primary effort to quash discussion
of the Holocaust and to hush criticism of Israeli behavior in Palestine.
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- The matter has reached a point where the truth must out
to stop the destructive behavior of concealment. Key elements of the story
are inescapably true. Many Jews and many more other people were picked
up and confined to stifle dissent or outright rebellion against the Nazi
cause. Those travesties were mirrored in Russia and neighboring states
as Stalin tried to suppress resistance to the emergent system of communism.
Many of the would-be victims took what they could and left, enduring unimaginable
hardships that brought them to remote places such as Shanghai, and eventually
to the United States.
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- Both history and humanity will be better served by an
open, honest examination of all events of World War II and its aftermath.
The lessons we should all take from that gruesome history are badly distorted
by singular focus on the story of a group of people who represent only
a minority of the victims. No one wants to deny the cruel realities of
that experience. Yet, as aptly expressed by the late Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but no one is
entitled to his own facts."
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- _End Note_
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- For solid background on the diminishing death count at
Auschwitz, readers should read
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- "Auschwitz The Final Count" by Michael
Collins Piper at www.rense.com/general62/aauc.htm
-
- **********
- The writer is the author of the recently published work,
A World Less Safe, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist
on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US
Department of State whose overseas service included tours in Egypt, India,
Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Brazil. His immediate pre-retirement positions
were as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National
War College and as Deputy Director of the State Office of Counter Terrorism
and Emergency Planning. He will welcome comment at
- wecanstopit@charter.net
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