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Happy 75th Birthday
Professor Dr Robert Faurisson
----- Original Message -----From: "Costas Zaverdinos" <zaverdinos@nu.ac.za>To: <norton2.cru@wanadoo.fr>Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 8:02 AMSubject: Happy Birthday, Professor Faurisson
A personal tribute to Professor Robert Faurisson on the occasion of his
75th birthday.
It is not an exaggeration to say that everyone has been affected in one
way or another by World War II. For most people the darkest, deepest
shadow cast by that event remains what has come to be called "The
Holocaust". The mere mention of "Auschwitz" raises a terrible dilemma:
how could the most advanced and cultivated nation plan and execute the
extermination of a whole people, many of whom had become thoroughly
integrated in European society? Are Germans so mad and evil that they
gassed their own people, some very gifted, just because of their
religion? I recall how often, like George Orwell, I used to ask myself
if there was any chance that the "gas chambers" were not true?
Reading David Irving's "Hitler's War" in 1977 gave some reason for
doubt, since the Führer himself appeared to unaware of any extermination
plan. At about the same time Richard Verral's "Did Six Million Really
Die?" was banned in South Africa. It was clear to me that certain Jews
were so offended by the latter that they had lobbied the government for
its proscription. There seemed however to be something obscene about
denying such an awful event and I did not pursue the matter further.
Although the media managed to keep Art Butz's "Hoax of the Twentieth
Century" in obscurity, this was not possible with the furor caused by
the Roques affair. This led to me to reading The Journal of Historical
Review.
Of all contributors to the Journal, it was Professor Robert Faurisson
who made the strongest impression on me. I found the clarity and
simplicity - in the best sense of that word - of his thoughts and
writing very attractive. The fact that he is a national of one of
Germany's former enemies only increased my admiration and whenever my
spirits flagged, reading Faurisson has been like a tonic.
Beginning his research on the Holocaust around 1974, for 30 years
Robert Faurisson has been the guiding light for European revisionists.
In spite of legal repression, physical attacks and calumnies of all
sorts his determination has never wavered. In 1999 appeared the 4-volume
collection "Écrits révisionnistes (1974 - 1998)" of his writing on the
subject in French. The following year Valerie Igounet's "Histoire du
négationnisme en France" (Seuil) was published. Meant to discredit
Faurisson, this work of nearly 700 pages can be considered as a kind of
tribute.
Already in the publication "Le 'problčme des chambres ŕ gas' ou 'La
rumeur d'Auschwitz'" (Le Monde, 29 December 1978) all the hallmarks of
Faurisson's methodology are present, setting the example for other
revisionists: Critical analysis of eyewitness reports, the reading of
documents for what they actually say without pretending to possess a
"secret key" and above all investigating materially the "weapon of the
crime" - the Nazi gas chamber. The upshot of these early writings was
the statement in Le Monde (21 February 1979) signed by 34 historians
that there was no need to investigate how the Nazi mass-murder took
place for the simple reason that it did! This untenable position was an
implicit admission that Faurisson was right, and of course, it could not
last. Unfortunately for the revisionists' opponents, their attempt to
correct the situation by appointing Jean-Claude Pressac turned out to be
something of a disaster. See in particular Faurisson's two articles in
The Journal of Historical Review (Vol. 11, Nos. 1 and 2) as well as his
Réponse ŕ Jean-Claude Pressac (RHR, 1994).
Faurisson's methods saw dramatic application in the two trials of Ernst
Zündel, culminating in the pioneering Leuchter Report of 1988.
In the first Le Monde article Faurisson couragously wrote: "Nazism is
dead and gone, together with its Führer. There remains today the truth.
Let us dare to proclaim it. The non-existence of the "gas chambers" is
good news for poor humanity. Good news that it would be wrong to keep
hidden any longer". (Translation from The Journal of Historical Review
(Vol. 19, No. 3, p.41)
Right from the beginning of his studies on the subject the Professor
has been calling for a public debate on the issue.
Instead, in France and Germany (for example) someone who expresses even
doubts about the "gas chambers" can be legally prosecuted, as has
frequently happened to R. Faurisson and others.
Richard Evans, who appeared as an expert witness for Deborah Lipstadt
in the libel case that David Irving brought against her, stands at one
extreme. He can find nothing positive to say about the revisionists:
they have contributed absolutely zero to the study of the Holocaust. On
the other hand, the renowned historian Hugh Trevor-Roper expressed
admiration for the work of Henri Roques on the Gerstein "confessions",
without becoming a revisionist on the "gas chambers" (The Journal of
Historical Review, Vol. 13, No. 5, 40-41).
There must be other historians of good will who would enter into an
open debate with the revisionists on the fate of the Jews during the
Third Reich, in particular the question of the gas chambers. As
Faurisson's slogan "no holes, no Holocaust" succinctly and vividly
evokes it, it would be a simple matter for anyone with the minimum
competence to check whether Zyklon B could have been introduced into
Leichenkeller 1 through the roof of Krema II at Birkenau.
There must be any number of qualified chemists who could repeat the
Leuchter tests and come to their own conclusions.
Where are all these people?
It is true that mainly Jewish organizations have been behind the
repression of revisionists and their allies - the latest being the
spiteful detention in Canada for almost a year of Ernst Zündel - but can
it be really said that only from "fear of the Jews" most historians wish
to keep the revisionists at arm's length? Robert Fisk and the late
Edward Said come to mind, who have shown no fear of the Zionists, but
rejected outright Holocaust revisionism.
When in 1995 I organised a seminar at the local university, "Can the
Standard Version of the Holocaust be Questioned?". I personally wrote
to every member of the history department inviting them to take part.
Not one did. All gave the impression that they thought revisionists are
not scholarly and just whitewashers of Hitler. In order to counter this
prejudice, we must try to understand it in another way. Perhaps the
situation should be compared with the time when the Church was
all-powerful and when questioning accepted dogma was frightening not
only because church institutions could physically harm one, but also
because the individual felt he was profaning something sacred with his
doubts.
Who can justify the discrimination against Jews, right from 1933
onward? In my view there can be no question that it was wrong and this
led to horrors later on as the sheer number of known deaths testifies. I
equally insist that crimes against the defeated - for example, the
brutal expulsion of over 12 million Germans from their ancestral homes -
were crimes against humanity, and I see no reason to mince my words.
Thus the feeling of guilt, especially in Germany is very real, and this
is surely a partial, if not total explanation for the general attitude
toward revisionists, who, after all, often express themselves quite
openly as sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.
What I am saying is that if the findings of revisionism are to go
beyond a tiny circle, this emotional reality has to be understood and
dealt with appropriately.
I must confess that I have my own motives: I would like to see in my
lifetime Faurisson's "good news" accepted by a lot more people. That, no
doubt, is a pipe dream, but there is a chance it could happen.
I recently wrote to Ernst Zündel that should independent researchers
find nobody was gassed at Auschwitz, it will start an avalanche that no
one can stop: Not the ADL, not the fanatical Zionists, not the German
do-gooders, no one! All current views concerning WWII will automatically
become subject to doubt and invite vigorous debate.
Portrayals by Hollywood of Germans as bestial ogres will be on their
way out!
Happy birthday, Professor Faurisson, and I wish you many more years
engaged in what has been called the great intellectual adventure of our
times!
Costas Zaverdinos
PS Copies sent to A Butz, Serge Thion, F Töben, M Weber and E Zündel
© -free 2003 Adelaide Institute
