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ISSN 1440-9828
August 2005
No 255
Is there no escape from the conceptual prison called
THE HOLOCAUST?
History on trial.Reporter: Tony Jones
Australian Broadcasting Corporation05/07/2005
TONY JONES: With us now is the academic and historian, Deborah Lipstadt, the author of History on Trial. Thanks for joining us. It seems to be the strangest thing of this case is that it was brought in the first place, the very basis of it that David Irving would actually claim that you had defamed him by calling him a Holocaust denier when that's what he was actually most famous for.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: That's right. It's very strange. It is strange because much of what we know about him now, in terms of his denial, in terms of his racism, in terms of his anti-semitism, we'd never have known had he not brought the case against me. I never would have sued him - I had no grounds - but I don't believe in suing people for their historical views, even if those views are complete bonkers. His are. He came after me knowing full well that - he should have known full well that we would expose him as the liar that he is.
TONY JONES: He had been denying it from 1988, I think. He said there was no overall right policy to kill Jews. There were no documents whatsoever to show that the Holocaust had ever happened. Hitler was the best friend the Jews had ever had.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Outrageous statements, but no-one had ever challenged him, no-one had ever tracked his footnotes. That's not what historians do. Historians generally try to find new information to uncover dark places that we don't know about to shed light on unknown events in history. They don't go over and look at someone who is clearly lying and say, "Let me show you how he is lying." He forced us to do that.
TONY JONES: Bearing that in mind, Irving defended himself here and in his opening statement to the court he promised to prove that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were nothing but fakes built by Poles after the World War 2. He obviously was setting out to prove a point and that point was denial.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: The point was denial. There were such inconsistencies. At one point he was arguing, "I don't deny", but then he's pointing out and trying to set out to prove denial. I think what he was doing is show to someone - let's say a parent brings a child into the emergency room and the child is completely beaten up and someone says, "Who did this?" and the parent said, "I did." They say, "That's child abuse." The parent says, "No, that's discipline." He's trying to reinvent, redefine and then say, "I don't do it." It doesn't have a logical consistency. He should have realised this before. We were able to prove that and point it out over and over in the courtroom.
TONY JONES: Let's go through a little bit of what he tried to base his case on. When it came to Auschwitz, he relied very heavily on the committed Holocaust denier, a man called Fred Leuchter, who claims to have gone to Auschwitz, gone to the gas chambers, chiselled out little pieces of concrete, put them into his underwear and took them back to the US and sent them off for chemical analysis to prove whether or not there was cyanide actually contained within them. That was the main piece of evidence.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: That's his main piece of evidence. Leuchter was in Auschwitz and did take these chunks and illegally went in and hacked them out of the walls of the gas chambers. What he did is he took chunks of concrete, pretty thick chunks, out of the homicidal gas chambers where people were murdered and out of the walls of the rooms where clothing and articles were deloused with the same gas. And he brought them back to Canada and sent them to a lab which does industrial testing and the lab pulverised the chunks and found that in the places where the clothing and objects had been deloused, there was a much higher residue of HCN, of hydrogen chloride, than there was in the places where people had been killed. Leuchter said, "Eureka! More residue where clothing was deloused than where people were killed. This is impossible. Nobody ever died at Auschwitz."
TONY JONES: You were forced to counter this kind of argument to produce your own counter evidence?
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Well, yes, exactly. We were forced, but this one was an easy one to prove. The fact of the matter is it takes much more gas to kill lice than it does to kill humans. So you should find a greater residue. Showing that Leuchter didn't even know the basic principle on which he was building this great report. Irving read the report in '88 and overnight said, "Aha, I've seen the evidence. There were no gas chambers." He was just looking for evidence and he took the flimsiest evidence - of course there is no evidence, but took this flimsy evidence and tried to build a whole house of cards around it.
TONY JONES: The title of your book History On Trial, as we've just suggested in the piece that preceded the interview has a double meaning. Your main job was to actually prove that Irving was an historical charlatan, that he was essentially a liar. But you had the other incredible burden, it seems to me, this legal burden of having to prove the Holocaust actually happened. How did you actually go about doing it? I know you had experts.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: We really weren't setting out to prove the Holocaust happened. What we were proving is that this man had the documents, knew the truth and lied about them. In the course of doing that we were showing that these things happened, but our objective was to prove this man is a liar. The irony is - let me just build on your question - the irony is my greatest concern was about history in the courtroom because history doesn't belong in the courtroom. History isn't adjudicated like laws and cases are adjudicated and yet it fared well in this case. Part of why we fared well in this case a is we had a magnificent judge. We had terrific expert reports.
TONY JONES: Turned out to be a matter of evidence, didn't it?
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Most of all we had the evidence. Most of all we had the evidence, we had the facts. There were no Perry Mason surprises. We pointed out that in every - not most, not many, but in every single point where this man talked about the
Holocaust, he either invented, lied, obfuscated, misinterpreted, twisted documents, changed dates, changed sequence, something, always to move in one direction - exoneration of Adolf Hitler; making it look like the Jews deserved what they got or they had been wrong and making it look like what happened didn't happen.
TONY JONES: Let's go back to Auschwitz for a moment because you and your team went there. In fact, you went there with your barrister at one point. He cross-examined your expert witness on the spot which must have been extraordinary.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: This was a couple of months before the trial and I was really at the height of my nervousness and concern and stress and we were standing in the delousing chamber and he begins to cross-examine our expert witness and the questions to me sounded so hostile that I suddenly burst out - there were about six of us - "Why are you asking those questions?" He got quite cross with me. We were very good friends and I'm a tremendous friend of his, Richard Rampton. He said, "I have to ask these questions." I pulled back and I just thought, "Oh, my God, this is going to morph into did the Holocaust happen trial, prove the Holocaust." Essentially what he is doing and now it is obvious to me I feel quite stupid I didn't see it then, he was preparing our expert witness for cross-examination. He was asking the questions that David Irving was going to ask him and of course that's what was what was going on.
TONY JONES: Considering you had to go back over the evidence, your expert witness comes up with some amazing facts that some of us just simply didn't know. I didn't know, for example, that the architectural plans for Auschwitz actually survived to destroy all documents. Tell us about that.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: The Germans right before they abandoned Auschwitz in January 1945 destroyed documents, destroyed archives. They forgot that there was a construction shed which had been used for when things were being built, when things were being designed and it hadn't been used in a number of years because they stopped building at Auschwitz for quite a while. It was just left and the chaos of that retreat, it was just left. There we found the working drawings torn, tattered, marked with little - obviously taken out on someone's arm to the site and we found the drawings and the plans for the gas chambers and the crematorium.
TONY JONES: Which actually showed the transformation -
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Yes, that's the amazing -
TONY JONES: - of a concentration camp into an extermination.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Into a death camp. In a canal, which was the death camp, there was originally built crematorium, according to German civil law every place there is a crematoria and in the bottom were morgues because according to German civil law every place there is a crematoria there have to be morgues. When they decided to use it for gas chambers, they took those morgues and turned them into gas chambers. So doors that used to be a slide - there was a concrete slide because you slide dead bodies down to the morgue on a guerny. When it was determined it would be used as gas chambers, the concrete slide was taken out and steps were put there because bodies are slid, live people walk down. And we found those changes over and over again showing the transformation, showing how it's done.
TONY JONES: And even going down to the gas protected windows.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Gas sealed.
TONY JONES: Gas sealed windows - the metal windows - which you actually found, I think.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: This isn't in the one that was transformed. Later on when they built gas chambers purposely for gas chambers they made them more efficient - no steps, etc. Everything was on one level. Instead of dropping the gas into the ceiling they had small windows 30-40cm through which it would be thrown. We found the plans which showed these 12 windows for throwing the gas and then we found the work order, from I think February '43, calling for the production of 12 gas-tight windows, 30 x 40cm. And then later in the store room in Auschwitz 1 - in part of the prison camp - we found three old windows exactly 30 x 40cms, the gas seals still evident and the handle for the window on the outside. If it was a normal window you never would have put a handle on the outside. You would put it on the inside. You would only put a handle on the outside if you want the people who are inside not to be able to open it.
TONY JONES: So once again, it's a burden of facts we're talking about.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: It's evidence.
TONY JONES: Your barrister, Richard Rampton, he didn't mince words when it came to his opening statement. We've talked a little bit about what Irving suggested in his opening statement he was going to prove. Rampton came straight out and said that Irving is not a historian at all.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: He's a liar. He's a liar. He proved that. he took one case to demonstrate it. In Himmler's diary - from November 30, 1941, Himmler kept a diary - there's a diary entry of Himmler going to see Adolf Hitler. And when Irving writes about this he writes, "Himmler was summoned to see Hitler and when he appeared there he was told the Jews - the liquidation - there was to be no liquidation of the Jews". What Irving was basing that statement on was a diary entry of Himmler where it said "Jewish transport - one train from Berlin, not to be liquidated." So there was one train that was coming from Berlin that Hitler was telling Himmler was not to be liquidated, possibly because of certain people who were on the train. But first of all, it's one train, it's not everybody. Second of all, if Hitler is saying "Don't liquidate this train, stop the liquidation" - you only stop something that's already going on. But for Irving this is proof that Hitler was saying there was to be no liquidation. It's a complete misreading of the evidence and misleading of his readers.
TONY JONES: Now another of your expert witnesses who we've had on this program, Richard Evans, took on the job of cross-checking through all of Irving's historical text and there are many of them, including the Bombing of Dresden and so on and so forth. He found in the cross-checking of quotes and references there were an extraordinary number of mistakes.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: He found - it is very interesting. Before Richard Evans began his work we were having dinner one night in London and I said you ought to make the argument in your expert report that this man is no historian. Richard Evans said to me he didn't think that wise. He said "No judge or jury" - it turned out to be just a bench trial. He said, "This man has written 20 books on history, nobody will think he's not a historian." So I dropped it. When I get his expert report - his magnificent expert report, which has been turned into a book Telling Lies About Hitler, - 10 pages into it he says "There's no way this man can be called a historian". Now why did he change his mind? Because he confronted the evidence. And in every single example relating to the Holocaust where he looked he found some invention, some distortion, something was just wrong and was something to mislead the reader.
TONY JONES: Tell us a little bit about the atmosphere in the trial? How did Irving react as his reputation is taken apart piece by piece through this long process?
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Well, based on his trial diary, which he would post each night on his web page, he thought he was doing great. He thought the judge was just supporting him. I think he seemed to me to be a man so filled with his own ego that he's blinded by his own vanity and he just didn't see how we were step by step demolishing him: how he was going down in flames. Even on the last day of the case there was a dramatic moment where he looked at the judge and instead of saying, "My lordship" he looked at the judge - a quintessential Brit - and said "Mein Furore".
TONY JONES: But was it a dark joke?
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: No, it was a slip, it was a slip. There were 250 people in the room. The room was packed with reporters. It's the last day of the case and everybody stopped breathing in unison and then broke into laughter. He just looked around - I was looking at him and he didn't know what was going on - and he just kept going forward. I think it was something just subliminal, but it was a quite telling moment.
TONY JONES: One final question, because we're nearly out of time. But I was surprised to read in your account about a prominent Jewish lawyer in London who advised you right at the beginning of this process to settle with Irving and not to go ahead with the case. He wasn't alone in not wanting the trial to go ahead?
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: There were a lot of people who were frightened. Not only British Jews, but particularly British Jews, who thought this would be a win-win for Irving. That even if he lost the case he'd get so much publicity out of it and he'd come out with an enhanced reputation. They were very nervous - "Who was this American who was coming over?" And I said, "Look, he is suing me. I'm not doing this. I'm defending myself. There's no way I'm going to settle. There's no way I'm going to apologise." And sometimes it was a lonely fight, because people were questioning what I did. But even this man in the end apologised and said I was wrong and you were right.
TONY JONES: Deborah Lipstadt, we thank you very much for taking the time to come in and giving us this account, in 15 minutes, of a very long trial.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Thank you for having me.
TONY JONES: Thank you very much.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Thank you.
Dear Tony Jones
- any chance of a right-of-reply?
Dr Fredrick Töben
******
Fredrick Töben advises:
'All Revisionist conferences are open to the public, and Revisionists do not shy away from debating any issue with anyone!'
******
The story keeps on changing!
Lipstadt's triumphalism: Homicidal gas chambers, and all that...another version of events - windows as gas induction holes! Ten years ago Lipstadt advised her listeners that proof of gassings was contained in the blueprints as reproduced in Pressac’s book.
Fredrick Töben asks:
1. Why did David Irving not call Professor Arthur Butz, Dr Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, Fritjof Meyer, et al, as witnesses on the Auschwitz homicidal gas chamber issue?
2. Why did David Irving rely on The Leuchter Report when The Rudolf Report is now definitive?
Why? Because David Irving is not a Holocaust Revisionist! He believes that some gassings occurred.How can anyone believe in the gassings when the ‘Holocaust’ believers have not yet fulfilled Professor Robert Faurisson’s challenge: SHOW ME OR DRAW ME THE HOMICIDAL GAS CHAMBER AT AUSCHWITZ!’?It is for those who believe the gassing story to prove their assertions because the non-believers cannot prove that which they believe did not happen! The ‘Holocaust’ has thus becomes a libel against Germans who themselves cannot question any aspect of the story because it has been criminalized. Why? Because doubting the ‘Holocaust’ story is defamatory of the Jews, is hate talk, is antisemitic, is racist, is neo-Nazi propaganda, is xenophobic, etc.
3. Why did Australia’s powerful Zionist lobby succeed in obtaining a Federal Court of Australia gag order against me that prevents me from discussing Lipstadt’s propaganda in detail?
The essence of Lipstadt's comments:
1. Germans are just so stupid. They even made gas-tight windows with handles outside, proving that these windows were used through which Zyklon B gas pellets were thrown.
2. Germans are just so stupid. They destroyed the evidence at Auschwitz, and then FORGOT to destroy the original plans that prove the gassing story.
3. Germans are just so stupid. It - and other countries - has laws which prevent anyone from challenging Lipstadt's exaggerations, fabrications and outright lies about her allegations that Auschwitz was a death/extermination camp where gas was used to kill men, women and children.
4. Lipstadt is a propagandist of the ... read and evaluate for yourself what she is... and remember to ask: Why is Ernst Zündel, et al, who refuses to believe in the 'Holocaust', in prison.
========================
The sadness of a self-serving quest that does not make contact with reality!
Professor Lipstadt speaks to closed-private meeting in Sydney.Do ‘Holocaust’ believers need Revisionists as scapegoats?
New-look Limmud Oz overflows
JACQUI GAL.AUSTRALIAN JEWISH NEWS, Melbourne edition, JULY 8, 2005
LIMMUD Oz, the adult-education talkfest, rolled into Sydney this week with more than 750 people in attendance, despite a number of sessions being held on weekdays for the first time.
Among the 100-plus speakers at the University of NSW were international guests Professor Deborah Lipstadt, counter-terrorism expert Dr Boaz Ganor and Fania Oz-Salzberger, each of whom addressed standing-room-only crowds.
Professor Lipstadt, best known for successfully defending herself against Holocaust-denier David Irving in a five-year libel trial which ended in April 2000, relayed her experiences to the crowd.
“We would not let this become a ‘did-the-holocaust-happen?’ case,” she told the audience. “We were going to prove that what I said was true, by going through his works on the Holocaust and demonstrating that he deliberately twisted it. That they were not mistakes.”
Professor Lipstadt was forced to answer libel charges following the publication of her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing assault on truth and Memory. She is due to address the Melbourne Jewish community this Sunday night.
Dr Ganor spoke about global threats to security and named Turkey as a major target for terror attacks, since it constituted such a threat to radical Islam.
“They are fighting against McDonald’s, Microsoft and modernity … in Turkey they see that it’s possible to live in a modern Islamic state,” he told the audience.
In her sessions, Oz-Salzberger advocated the need for an Israeli constitution, despite the complications drafting one would present.
Outside the venue, there was no sign of Holocaust-revisionist Dr Fredrick Toben or any other far-right activist, after organizers rejected several applications from them to attend.
However, a number of Palestinians arrived mid-morning on Sunday, hoping to be admitted but they were politely refused entry.
“They were told it was a private event,” said Shalom Institute CEO Dr Hilton Immerman. “Without any hassle, they left. I don’t know that they were there to cause trouble.” …
Beyond the lectures, on topics ranging from antisemitism to the Armenian genocide, social justice to sex, there was a children’s program and young-adult function featuring musical performances by local talent and a presentation by Melbourne media personality John Safran. Sunday evening’s event at the Sydney Jewish Museum, “The power of memory”, featured Professor Lipstadt, University of Melbourne history lecturer Dr Mark Baker, Joseph Toltz and Monash University’s Margaret Taft, interspersed with musical interludes from Judy Campbell.
========================
Lipstadt: Denying the denier
Jacqui Gal
Australian Jewish News, Sydney edition, July 8, 2005
If there was one session presenter who would raw punters out of bed on a frosty July morning, it was Professor Deborah Lipstadt.
Addressing a packed auditorium on Sunday (3 July) at 9am, Professor Lipstadt relayed her experiences of the five-year libel trial, where she defended herself against Holocaust denier David Irving in a London court.
“We would not let this become a ‘did the Holocaust-happen?’ case, she said. “We were going to prove that what I said was true, by going through his works on the Holocaust and demonstrating that he deliberately twisted it; that they were not mistakes.”
During the case, professor Lipstadt became something of a hero to survivors and Jewish groups worldwide. Over time, she said, she began to realise the importance of her task.
“I did not choose this fight,” she said. “In Judaism taking care of the dead is the most important act of loving-kindness; for five years I had the capacity to do that.”
=================
Jones: the A to Z of antisemitism
Mark Franklin
Australian Jewish News, Sydney edition, July 8, 2005
“My personal favourite,” said Jeremy Jones, “is the one where the Jews supposedly invented internet pornography in order to take over the world.”
The theory, he explained, goes that it has not only made the Jews lots of money – which, of course, they are always interested in – but has also corrupted the world’s morality. Having spent many years monitoring the gamut of antisemitism in his work for the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Jones has heard practically every Zionist conspiracy theory ever concocted.At his Limmud Oz session last weekend “Antisemitism in Australia”- he presented an A to Z of crackpots, conspiracy theorists, and genuinely-dangerous Australians whose common thread is simply their hate of Israel and the Jewish community.It could have been a very gloomy serious presentation, but Jones chose instead to show these groups for what they often are – fanatics with very loose grips on reality.
They ranged from right-wing nationalists (such as the Australian League of Rights) to militant neo-Nazis (Howling Dog 88) to fundamentalist religious groups (the Bible Believers).
But as well as the wacky and outrageous, Jones also included in his presentation left-wing groups such as the Greens and Indymedia.com.
He claimed their criticisms of Israel were akin to antisemitism, citing comparisons of the Magan David with the swastika as evidence of antisemitism prejudice.
========================
Fredrick Töben comments
– right-of-reply!
I do not know of anyone who would be stupid enough to limit his moral and intellectual horizon by focusing exclusively on things Jewish. The ‘Jewish world-view’ is terribly limiting by its very nature of always celebrating its perpetual EPES [eternally persecuted status – Geoff Muirden].Getting involved in this world-view would then make a person a useful idiot/scapegoat for the self-obsessed Jews who are out to find under their beds anyone they can label: hater, Holocaust denier, antisemite, racist, neo-Nazi. Through such concepts Jews attempt to stop individuals from functioning, as Jones boastfully stated publicly some years ago. For example, the Jewish-inspired machinations contained within the Australian Racial Discrimination Act, are designed to handicap free thinking individuals who, if they do not recognize the pattern of this battle of the wills, will then submit to things Jewish – and that is not healthy because such censorship becomes mental rape.Jones’ mental make-up – the raw/primitive attributes of fear, guilt, retribution – is determined by his feverish mind that has him in a Holocaust, just coming out of a Holocaust, or expecting a Holocaust. There is more to life than things Jewish – much, much more.The summary below on the values discussion at the ‘Limmud Oz adult-education talkfest’ confirms this because it indicates there was a superficial discussion of a fundamental cultural determinant – values!That the ‘Holocaust’ has become a surrogate value for those who have no moral and intellectual values is a development that began to sweep the world gradually during the 1970s, and is reaching its pinnacle with the predicable decline of the State of Israel.Professor Deborah Lipstadt embodies this decline in her personal moral and intellectual value system through her much celebrated statement: “There is no discussion about the Holocaust”! The ‘Holocaust’ is nuisance value for free-thinkers because through legal constraints it cannot be contested.It has, in effect, become the dogma for the New World Order, or as US President George W Bush defines the NWO – the war for freedom and democracy and against terrorism.
===============
Opening Night
Scholars debate clashing values
Mark Franklin
AJN, Sydney edition, July 8, 2005
The “clinking of clashing values” is a beautiful sound to the ears of Israeli academic Dr Fania Oz-Salzberger. And it rang in almost 500 sets of ears last Saturday night, as she and three others of the world’s leading Jewish thinkers discussed “truth and morality; freedom and security”.
The opening night of Limmud Oz was not tarnished by the protests of Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben – as had been feared – and the panelists compared clashing values peacefully before an enraptured audience.
“If anyone promises you truth and morality, freedom and security – four for the price of one – you can be sure that he or she is a politician,” Dr Oz-Salzberger said. “Because we all know that values sometimes do clash. They do not always harmonise.”
She was joined by renowned Holocaust historian Professor Deborah Lipstadt, Israeli counter-terrorism analyst Dr Boaz Ganor, and Australian media commentator and political lobbyist Jeremy Jones.
They discussed the complexities that sometimes make it impossible to achieve all four of these important values.
Dr Oz-Salzberger tackled morality, highlighting the inherent prejudices in the catchphrase currently being used by Israelis in the occupied territories: “A Jew does not evacuate a Jew”. “Whom then does a Jew evacuate?” she mused. “For me, morality lies beyond my group of origin. It has to have universal values.”
Dr Ganor, on the theme of security, argued that military combat could usually be justified as a means of securing a projected goal.
But he said “the deliberate use of violence aimed at civilians to achieve political ends” could never be justified – and this, he argued, was the best definition of terrorism.
Professor Lipstadt – on truth – warned that although it might sometimes be painful or even counter-productive to acknowledge the truth, we should never shy away from it.
The Holocaust, she said, “is a model for us as Jews not to be afraid of truth – not to be afraid to speak truth to power – because if we don’t address painful truths, they will often come back to bite us”.
And Jones – on freedom – highlighted the extent to which liberty is largely the extent to which liberty is largely achieved through security. He said that without “Israel as a Jewish state”, Jews all around the world would be far less free to live Jewish lives. We have a freedom in Australia to reach out [to other religious communities] largely because we have security,” he said.========================
Letters, AJN, July 8, 2005, In Praise of Deborah
There are not many heroines in modern Jewish history that have been acknowledged for their valiant fight for Jewish honour and for its very survival as a nation. One of Israel’s pre-independence freedom fighters, Hannah Senesh, is considered one of those rare women.
Today there is such a heroine in our very midst and her name is Professor Deborah Lipstadt, who took David Irving – the poster boy of the extreme right wing who is also a historian and unabashed Hitler admirer and Holocaust denier – to court and proved unequivocally that indeed the Holocaust did happen and six million Jews were murdered and gassed by the Nazi regime.
Professor Lipstadt might not have jumped out of an airplane and parachuted into enemy territory like Senesh, but she shut the door to years of taunting by Holocaust deniers.
Professor Lipstadt, you are truly worthy of many thanks on behalf of those who have perished in the Holocaust; their memory is not in vain.
Uri Butnaru, North Bondi, NSW.
Deborah Lipstadt addressing a closed meeting of ‘Holocaust’ believers in Sydney.Will she ever escape from the HOLOCAUST, her self-constructed conceptual prison?Holocaust Revisionist Fredrick Toben spends a delightful week hosting the Muirdens in Adelaide.=========================================
Council ‘Holocaust’ pay claim rejected, Melissa Singer, AJN, July 8, 2005
AN application for a pay rise by councillors as compensation for having to deal with a disproportionate number of Holocaust survivors has been rejected. In a submission to the Victorian Government earlier this year, councillors from the City of Glen Eira applied for a $3000 wage increase to compensate for the pressure of addressing the specific needs of the large local Jewish community, especially Holocaust survivors. “Holocaust survivors can give rise to issues which, while small in number, are extremely difficult to deal with (e.g. fear of walls being built too close; culturally-specific home-care services),” the submission stated. The submission also stated Jewish organisations are “seeking to develop places of worship or cultural activity in a city which is virtually fully developed and that produces tensions”. Other reasons cited for the pay increase included flooding, an ageing population and a high proportion of overseas students.
More items from the AJN, July 8, 2005. [Indicates why the ‘Holocaust’ is important for Jews-FT]
Poland to launch Schindler museum
WARSAW — The Emalia factory, where Oscar Schindler shielded more than 1000 Jews from the Holocaust, is to be turned into a museum commemorating the German industrialist’s life, made famous in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film. Poland’s Ministry of Culture and the city of Cracow, where the factory is located, have earmarked some four million zlotys ($1.5 million) for the museum project, which is to be completed by the end of the year, said Halina Pijanowska, a spokeswoman for the ministry. “This is a story which needs to be documented; it’s part of Cracow history,” said Aleksander Janicki, a local artist designing the project. Parts of the factory, including the office where Schindler worked, have already been open to tourists, who can view models of the project. “Everyone has seen Schindler’s List and they want to come and see the place,” he said. “It’s a natural place for such a museum.
Ellison sets Zentai deadline
Bernard FreedmanFEDERAL Justice Minister Senator Chris Ellison has set this Friday as the deadline for the Hungarian government to provide adequate information to justify the extradition of alleged Nazi war criminal Charles Zentai to face trial for the alleged killing of a Jewish teenager in Budapest during World War II. Brad Burke, media spokesman for Ellison, told the AJN this week that reports that the minister would authorise extradition on Friday misinterpreted Ellison’s statement at a news conference on Monday that a decision would be finalised by the end of the week. He said Ellison would announce on Friday whether there was sufficient information to allow Australian officials to prepare a submission recommending extradition. Meanwhile, a senior official of the Hungarian Justice Ministry was due to arrive in Canberra this week to consult with Australian lawmakers about the extradition proceedings. Acting Hungarian Ambassador Bela Bozsik told the AJN this week that if Zentai is extradited he will be tried in a Hungarian military court because the crime he is alleged to have committed occurred while he was a serving soldier.
Under pressure, Russia drops probe of Jewish book
Lev Krichevsky Aand Sam Ser
MOSCOW — Following a storm of protest from Jewish groups and Israeli politicians, Russian officials have dropped a probe into a Russian Jewish group for publishing a religious Jewish book. But Russian Jewish leaders warn that those interested in human rights should remain vigilant to prevent similar incidents in the future. “The fact that the prosecutors have been seriously considering that case for a long time, isn’t that a reason for us to be concerned?” said Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organisations and Communities of Russia, the group that was the subject of the probe. The probe was launched after an antisemitic letter was circulated earlier this year attacking the text of the Shulchan Aruch legal code as “extremist and anti-Christian”. The congress has published a short version of the medieval Jewish text. The probe astonished Israeli officials and heads of international Jewish groups, who said it reminded them of religious persecution under the czar and of religious disputations foisted on Jews by the Catholic Church in medieval times.
LETTERS
MOND REPLIES
AT best, in an attempt at even-handedness, your editorial (AJN 1/7) blames David Mond for “dragging the issue and thus the whole community through the courts”. In a previous editorial echoing an emotive cry, you referred to David Mond “dragging the shul to court”, choosing to ignore the fact that this was a secular issue dealing with an incorporated association. The substantive matters had nothing whatsoever to do with the shul or the conduct of its services.
You know very well, having interviewed both David and myself on a number of occasions, that David twice attempted prior to the very first Magistrates’ Court hearing to settle the matter through independent mediators and that on both occasions, the other side refused to participate.
In accordance with the Caulfield Hebrew Congregation (CHC) Inc constitution, Magistrate Michael O’Dwyer granted David’s application for an injunction, stopping the September 2000 election until there was a members’ register. Had there been compliance with that order, the matter would have ended there and at zero cost to CHC and the community.
The question your editorial failed to address was, “Why did it take $2.4 million of members’ money and almost five years to create a register of members and conduct a clean election?” Instead, you have chosen to perpetuate a catchcry which created a climate of “sinat chinam” — hate of a fellow Jew for no reason. I do not expect that you will apologise, but please, stop blaming David Mond for the misconduct of others.Barry Mond, Caulfield North, VIC
WISHY-WASHY RABBIS
FOLLOWING his organisation’s half-hearted condemnation of the recently-established Shira Hadasha minyan, I was not surprised to read of another lukewarm reaction by the president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, to criticism of the mechitzah at the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha cemetery prayer house (AJN 17/6). It is truly a shame that the rabbinical leaders of our Orthodox community feel it necessary to find favour in the eyes of the Reform, feminists and irreligious individuals, rather than have the nettle to strongly and clearly enunciate the halacha. Rabbi Kluwgant should realise that being wishy-washy sends the wrong message to both observant and non-observant Jews.CHAIM FLIEGMAN, St Kilda East, VIC
SOME NERVE
SO Progressive Rabbi Fred Morgan is “deeply saddened” by the installation of a mechitzah in the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha (MCK) cemetery shtiebel and has “slammed” the MCK for its “ultra-frumkeit” (AJN 24/6). The spiritual leader of an organisation that not only sanctions but also, through its Bet-Olam funeral service, offers members the option of cremation, which according to Jewish tradition causes immense pain to the eternal soul of the deceased and is explicitly forbidden by halacha, has some nerve to assess “ultra-frumkeit”. Shlomo Boruch Abelesz, St Kilda East, VIC
UP AND DOWN
WE commend the AJN on the editorial (17/6) and the news coverage in the same issue of the mourners’ outrage regarding the new mechitzah at Melbourne Chevra Kadisha (MCK) cemetery. The original shtiebel was established with input from the rabbinical authorities of the time. For more than 30 years, many rabbis (including Chabad) officiated at hundreds of funerals. Clearly, the rabbis had no problems all these years (and there was obviously no flouting of Jewish laws). This was the established Melbourne minhag (custom) and rabbis have told us that an established minhag is as binding as halachic law. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Yet it didn’t take long for the 30-year-old minhag to be overturned by a fait accompli.
The easiest thing would be to accept the fait accompli and let matters rest. But our sages have taught us that “acharei rabim l’hatot” (the majority decides, even in important halachic matters). We are convinced that the majority of the observant, as well as traditional members of the community are against the imposition of this mechitzah.
Is it possible that the new mechitzah is a test run for the new cemetery, which being new has no old minhag to overturn? MCK has served the Jewish community well over the years but we believe that it has erred in this matter. We urge MCK to think again, and reconsider. It didn’t take long to put up the mechitzah. It shouldn’t take long to remove it.
Dr E H Ehrmann, Norman Schindler, Julian Boymal and Sol Shifrin, Caulfield, VIC
LOOK TO HALACHA FOR MECHITZAH GUIDANCE
IF it weren’t such a serious matter, I would be pronouncing that the Messiah must be due. Fancy the leading rabbis of the Orthodox and Reform rabbinate both expressing disappointment at the mechitzah of the “ultra-frum” Melbourne Chevra Kadisha! I can’t recall such a feeling of unity in a long time. What next? Progressive Rabbi Fred Morgan addressing the next meeting of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria and Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant delivering a sermon at Temple Beth Israel?
In a serious vein, as Rabbi Kluwgant’s ambiguous comment regarding the halacha of separating the sexes at funerals has created such a storm, I consulted several rabbis for their views. I was directed to the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah (354:2) and the condensed Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (195:10) — a book found in almost every observant Jewish home. There it clearly states that men and women should not see each other both before and after the burial, as it is a “sakana” (danger) to them. Has this ruling slipped the minds of Melbourne’s rabbis or are they simply ignoring it? And is it really too much to expect that at least Orthodox rabbis be guided by halacha?Lewis Melzer, Bondi, NSW
PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
I AM puzzled by the ongoing debate about the erection of the mechitzah in the prayer room at Springvale cemetery. No-one is forced to have services held in Springvale. If rabbis Fred Morgan and Meir Shlomo Kluwgant object, they can arrange the pre-burial service to take place elsewhere and follow that with the burial at the gravesite. This is indeed how it is done in many Jewish communities. Let us not forget that “chevra kadisha” means “holy society”. The trustees of the Chevra Kadisha have a holy responsibility to follow the letter of Jewish law and tradition during such an important life-cycle event.JUSTIN SLONIM, Melbourne, VIC
ESAU’S “HOLY WAR”
An impassioned plea to all Saxons, by Dagmar Brenne
In the year 1933 an unusual event took place. This event was largely ignored by the world. In fact, it is almost totally unknown. Maybe it was regarded as just a little quirk. If you speak about it most people will look at you with a blank expression or in disbelief. What madness are you proclaiming?
On the 24. March 1933 World Jewry declared war on Germany. The Daily Express proclaimed: “Judea declares war on Germany. The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany. 14 million Jews stand together as one man to declare war against Germany. The Jewish wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock- exchange, the merchant his commerce, the pauper his pitiful shed in order to join in a HOLY WAR against Hitler’s people. Germany is our public enemy No. 1. It is our object to declare war without mercy against her.” Declared by Bernard Lecache, president of the Jewish World League. Please note the date: 24. March 1933.
In 1933 Hitler had just been elected into power by democratic election. He was an unknown quantity, yet in this declaration of war the German people were called “Hitler’s people”. How odd! Australians have never been called “Howard’s people” or the Americans “Bush’s people”, neither the English the “Queen’s people”. What did Mr. Lecache know that nobody else had an inkling about, at least not the German people at large? Once again it makes me ask the question, who was Adolf Hitler? In whose employ was this man? What was he meant to do in Germany? Was he really on the German side or was he paid by Jewish interests? At the end of the war he was not there to face the “Nuremberg Trial”.
Germany came to know what the war without mercy meant when she surveyed the utter destruction of German lands and life by 8. May 1945, only 12 years later. And there was no fearless “Fuehrer”. He had bailed out! The destruction of Germany was achieved with Jewish money and the best enemies that money can buy: England, USA, France and the Soviet Union, the victors of the war.
But were they the victors? Whose money you take, that is whose slave you are. The Allies have lost their freedom too and have been locked into a never ending spiral of war and decline ever since.
In all the history of the world, to my knowledge, Jewry has never declared war on any nation, only on Germany. And this declaration of war has never been rescinded! A merciless war has been waged against Germany since 1933 - 72 years to date (2005). I like to point out that by the date 1933 there were no concentration camps built. So, the Jewish declaration of war preceded events. Did THEY know something already? Did THEY perhaps plan something? Anti- German feelings had been kept on the boil with the Lindbergh kidnap case in America and England sure did not need much prompting.
What in God’s Name had the German people done to deserve this Jewish hatred? In all of Europe the Jews enjoyed no higher privileged positions and a better, cultured life style than in Germany. The German Jew was in the highest echelon of society and in the highest earning brackets, far above the rest of the population.
Here is a breakdown of the positions filled by Jews in Berlin and Prussia during the Weimar Republic:
Medical men 48%
School Doctors 43%
Welfare Doctors 68%
Hospital Directors 45%
Dentists 38%
Chemists 32%
Lawyers 54%
Theatre Managers 80%
Head Doctors 44%
Teachers in Med. Faculties 50%
Teachers in Philosophy 25%
The Jews constituted less than 2% of the population of Prussia, with most of them living in Berlin and filling the most influential positions in the country.
Usually people in high positions are by far more informed about government policies than people further down the ladder, the unsuspecting population.
How come they were being led away like lambs to the slaughter into concentration camps, as is being asserted by the unrelenting media for many years now?
Something does not ring true!
There had been a steady flow of propaganda in regards to the “appalling treatment” of the Jews in Germany. Books such as Germany must perish have been circulated.
In Oct. 1919 an article appeared in the American Hebrew magazine, saying the “Crucifixion of Jews must stop” It claimed that 6 million Jews were the intended victims in Europe. 6 Million? Yes, 6 Million, no less! Read and marvel, 1919 the date of the Prophetic Vision of 6 million Jews perishing in Europe!!
Germany had just lost the Great War to the best enemies money can buy.
The defeated nation was made to sign a most humiliating peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles. The news circulated, that one of the signatories was Lord Rothschild. The German people were stunned, ROTHSCHILD of the banking dynasty. Rothschild, who had started out in Frankfurt, Germany.
They, the Rothschilds were almost one of their own. Well, ALMOST. And what country did they represent anyway? The country of MAMMON, no doubt. A bitter cry went up from the impoverished, starving unemployed German people: The Jews are the cause of our misery! Can you blame the Germans? Germany had been sucked into the vortex of World War One and World War 2 was soon to follow. No German negotiations were able to extract themselves from the determined will of the Mammon powers, which said, “Germany must perish”. The question arises: Why was it not enough for the Jews to live well, to have an influential, cultured life style in Germany?
Why did marauding Jewish Communists go around Germany, destroying and smashing German culture? Why could Jews not live a peaceful existence next to their German neighbours? Why, oh why the betrayal?
The only answer, that makes any sense to this riddle is found in the Bible.
The one and only explanation lies in the age-old conflict of the twin brothers Jacob and Esau. Regardless of what Judeo- Christianity says about the Jews being the “Chosen People” Jesus has a very simple way of defining who is who:
You can only serve GOD or Mammon. You belong either to the one or the other. I think the servants of Mammon are easily recognised. Jews have an increasing hold on the finances of the entire Earth. The Bible tells us too, that “the love of money is the root of all evil”. And the Jews sure love money.
By contrast even the most rabid anti-German cannot deny that Germany is not a Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic nation, nor adheres to any other exotic religion.
She is simply a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, throughout her long history.
Many people are now intent to delve into origins and determine if someone is an Israelite or not, a difficult thing to prove. But even a flawless Israelite pedigree does not assure goodness and salvation. The rule of thumb is generally, the white Christian nations of Europe are the Israelites, who went from there into all the world. They are the offspring of Jacob and Isaac.
Jesus again makes it very simple. He says: “My sheep hear my voice and follow me”. In this regard the German people are easily identified as His sheep. The clearest evidence exists here, that the Germans must be Jacob and the Jews, who have a great hatred towards our Lord Jesus and His people can only be Esau. There has never been any greater, fundamental conflict than between Germany and the Jewish money powers of Mammon. Esau has convinced almost everyone that he is Jacob. Isaiah 27:6 says that Jacob fills the Earth with fruit. Germans have always been excellent farmers. Jews avoid contact with the soil or manual labour. How can they be Jacob?
What is Esau’s end objective? He lost his birthright to Jacob and the blessing that goes with the birthright. He wants it back again. That is it what Esau’s holy war is all about. Obviously the blessing and the birthright must be in Germany, the place of the fiercest hatred. Nothing else makes any sense.
Esau does not care if he destroys the entire world in his pursuit. That is why Esau cannot settle anywhere, be it ever so comfortable, luxurious, peaceful.
Even the much longed for country of the Israeli with its ancient high places cannot satisfy Esau. He has to destroy Jacob, nothing less.
How is it that Esau is in Jacob’s role? In the time before Christ, there was a forced conversion of the defeated Edomite nation by John Hyrcanus. From that time on Esau has worked to use it to his advantage, intermarrying with Judeans, mixing the blood lines, something forbidden by God. The higher echelon of society in Jesus times were intermingled with Edomite blood.
King Herod was an Edomite, as were many of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Hence the constant battle with these groups, which eventually lead to Jesus’ crucifixion. When were the Edomites last heard of? At the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD! Afterwards they were scattered into all the world, generally regarded as Jews. To this day they follow the religion instituted by the Pharisees, based on the Talmud. Judaism is the only religion in the world that can claim the Babylonian connection, the Babylonian Talmud. Is this not Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots?
It must have suited Esau to be regarded as Jacob. We have no more mention of Esau’s nation after the fall of Jerusalem. But it would be foolish to think, that Esau had been totally destroyed as a people. If he were disguised as Jacob he could all the more easily stalk Jacob, eliminating him wherever he could. As I said, the lost birthright and the blessing given to Jacob by his father Isaac is the objective. Esau never gives up. I feel we are approaching the final stage of the age-old antagonism. Esau/ the Jews have a controversy with the German people. This is the clearest indication that Jacob must be hidden most evidently among the German people. It is not what the German people have DONE, but who they ARE. Germany can pay until the end of time, they can apologise, crawl on their knees before the Jews, a dreadful spectacle we witnessed recently, the dictate still stand: Germany must perish. It is Esau’s Holy war. No mercy. I believe that only God Himself can come to the rescue of Jacob in this time of Jacob’s trouble. In the Bible we read, that Michael will stand up in the time of the end. He is the great prince who watches over the people of God. Michael is the patron Saint of Germany and Portugal, another Germanic group of people.
Esau, since the Versailles Treaty has been personified with “Lord Rothschild”.
The name Rothschild means Red Shield. By some quirk of history it has come to be pronounced more recently “Wrath-Child”. How fitting. Amos says this: Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Edom and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his WRATH for ever.” Ezekiel says this: “Because thou (Mt. Seir) has had a perpetual hatred and has shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end”. Ezekiel 35:5
According to the Bible it will not end well for Esau. God hates Esau. He has not said this about any other person in the Bible, however wicked the person may have been. Not Assyria, not Babylon has thus been singled out. Only Esau has this distinction, he alone in the entire Bible. “Therefore as I live “, says the Lord GOD, “I will prepare you for blood and blood shall pursue you”
Wake up Saxons, wherever you live! We have one common enemy. Don’t think Esau is only after Germany. Don’t gloat over Germany’s misfortune and demise. Esau is after all of the sons of Jacob, all Saxons are his objective.
He will not spare you in England, America or Australia. Esau will eliminate all Saxons. And, oh how Jacob has become so very small!! Esau wants his birthright and the blessing back.
Oh, you Saxons, who are stuck on the British Israel teaching! Can’t you see that the “Multitude of Nations” in Gen. 48:19 are the white Christian Nations of Europe. It is not Britain/ USA at all. The European nations that were formed from 10 Germanic tribes- Alemani, Burgundians, Saxons, Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, Suevi, Vandals, Heruli, and the Ostrogoths.
They were ruled to a large extent by German Kaisers in the “Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation”. A continuation of the Roman Empire.
Germany and its Royal house are in the centre of the controversy of Esau/ Jacob.
Can’t you see, that Esau wants his Israeli state to be part of Europe, to rule the whole of the Christian World from Jerusalem. Christian Europe is Esau’s greatest thorn in his side.
Open your eyes, oh you Saxons. There is nothing that Esau dreads more than the exposure of his schemes and his true identity.
Wake up, Saxons, take away Esau’s cover. The Jews are Esau, your enemy.
[Adelaide Institute publishes this essay in good faith but does not necessarily share the views expressed therein.]
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Fredrick Töben writes a paragraph to a Believer - also applicable to those who believe in the 'Holocaust'!
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1. "Thank you for your letter wherein you expound your belief in Christianity, and in the Bible as the word of God.
2. The Word of God needs rationally to be looked at, and we then find that many individuals shy away from such an analysis because they then need to accept the awesome responsibility of having to confront their own mortality contained within the concept God.
3. It takes moral and intellectual courage, and some maturity to self-reflect at this intense level. Most individuals fall into the trap of then embracing atheism, often at the expense of losing the capacity to embrace the irrational concept of love, thereby nose-diving into nihilism and self-destruction.
4. Life is more than logic!
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Anyone who wishes to contribute to Fredrick Töben's own development and maturity is invited to respond.
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