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10 Denying the Holocaust Paul Johnson's review of Deborah Lip- stadt's book about "Holocaust denial" not only contains serious errors of fact, but manifests the very closed-mindedness he finds so repellent in others. Johnson's lack of familiarity with the basic Denying the Holocaust facts of the subject is shown by his confusion about the name of the wicked organization OUR review of Denying the Holo- he wrongly identifies as the "Institute for caust: The Growing Assault on Truth Historical Research." and Memory, by Deborah Lipstadt 1993 Y Contrary to what Johnson asserts, no (Book World, July 11), is so full of factual prominent revisionist claims that the errors that I would suggest that Lipstadt Diary of Anne Frank was "written by a profession- return to teaching religious studies at Em- UST 15, al New York playwright in collaboration ory University and leave history to the less with Anne Frank's father." biased. Since Lipstadt serves up my worth- AUG Revisionist scholars—including best-sell- less carcass as a terrible example of all ing British historian David Irving, Arthur that's wrong with the. human race, and your Butz of Northwestern University, and reviewer, Paul Johnson, innocently reports French professor Robert Faurisson—are what she says. I ask you to reprint this let- WORLD / not "deniers." They readily acknowledge the ter, not in my defense but as an exercise in K 7 full scope of the Jewish tragedy during the journalistic accuracy. Second World War. Johnson's review cites a number of Lip- BOO As even prominent Holocaust historians stadt's assertions that are not true. Some samples: She says that Liberty Lobby, 10 which I serve as an officer and (low-paid) employee, is 'virtually identical to the Insti- tute for Historical Review, Noontide Press and the American Mercury and supports quietly acknowledge, though, many once them financially. The facts, however, are supposedly "proven" Holocaust stories are that we have never contributed a dime to clearly not true. For example, no serious the IHR, et al., nor has our 16,000-member historian still defends claims of gassings at Board of Policy ever voted to take any po- Dachau and Buchenwald—charges that sition on the "Holocaust." were supposedly proven at Nuremberg. The confusion on the general subject of Skepticism about the orthodox Holocaust the "Holocaust" is exemplified by the art- story is growing, not because, it is anti- work used in the review—a pile of corpses, Semitic, but because more and more allegedly at Dachau, presumably gassed thoughtful people agree that revisionist ar- `Jews. But "everyone" knows that there were guments correspond with the facts. no gas chambers at Dachau. Even Abba More dangerous than "Holocaust denial" Eban and Simon Wiesenthal have stated is the largely ignored campaign of threats, this. hook-burning and violence (including mur- Incidentally, revisionists do not deny that der) against those who challenge Holocaust the Third Reich was anti-Semitic and that claims. In several countries (such as millions of people were killed in World War France), special laws treat "Holocaust de- 11, all of them needlessly, many under hor- niers" as criminals. Similar laws dealing with rible circumstances and that many were any other issue would provoke the outrage Jews. War is Hell. War itself is a crime and from prominent intellectuals and newspa- all criminal investigators know that the pers. In our society, the Holocaust story is truth of a crime lies in the details. That's regarded as more sacred than the tradition- what revisionists seek—the details, the al religious faith of the great majority of our truth. And that's no crime. citizens. Perhaps Lipstadt's confusion about Lib- MARK WEBER erty Lobby's connection with the IHR is - Editor, Journal of Historical Review that I (not David McCalden or Finklestein or Institute for Historical Review whoever) founded the IHR and I personally Newport Beach, Calif. sympathize with its healthy skepticism, which I was taught by my betters is or at In his review of Deborah E. Lipstadt's De- least was the politically correct avant garde nying The Holocaust, Paul Johnson does not attitude. Working for Liberty Lobby even as hesitate to attach the dread label of "anti- a revisionist only proves that 1 can walk and Semite" to anyone who questions any of the chew gum at the same time, it doesn't prove purported facts of the Holocaust. And he that the IHR and Liberty Lobby are the agrees with the author of the book that spe- same thing. cial laws should be invoked against anyone As for Deborah Lipstadt: Get thee back to questioning these facts, rather than relying thy nunnery and theology. Theologians on the laws which we currently have against don't need facts but historians do. libel and slander which suffice for all other WILLIS A. CARTO cases. Treasurer, Liberty Lobby This letter is not about whether, or to Washington, D.C. 1. • ..... Letters Fv.ir-1 • 8-1•F ,..C1CAIAL .88.8081" a-F THE IAJLOCAUST EIMILD 8. al 6 .I 2J Bodies of prisoners piled in Dachau. This photograph was taken soon atter the concentration camp was liberated. what extent, the Jewish (and gay, and gypsy, and "undesirables") Holocaust oc- curred, but rather to point out that it is a very dangerous thing to restrict honest in- quiry and opinion. I can think of no subject so sacrosanct as to prohibit free discussion. Our freedom of speech is one of our most precious rights, and should not be curtailed in any way. DORIS RAUSCH Columbia There is a serious misstatement of fact in Paul Johnson's review of Deborah E. Lip- stadt's Denying the Holocaust. In it, he writes that President Franjo Tudjrnan of Croatia "insists that only 900,000 Jews died." For your information, President Tudjman In addition, Leuchter has no real exper- tends toward Raul Hi'berg's approximate tise in the construction of execution appa- figure of 5,100,000 as the one best docu- ratuses. On several occasions he sought mented (per his book, Wastelands of Histor- consulting work in the U.S. penitentiary ical Reality, pp. 155-156). Hilberg is men- system as an expert on executions, but was tioned in Lipstadt's book as well and has never hired because he lacked the exper- never, to my knowledge, been called a "Ho- tise. His expertise in this area is non- locaust denier." Why then Tudjman? The existent. 900,000 figure is the one for which Raul SAM LAMBROZA Hilberg says there exist actual death cer- Fredericksburg tificates. The misunderstanding arose, I be- One point comes to mind from reading lieve, in an article on this issue in the New the review of Denying the Holocaust, some- York Times, in which the Croatian ambas- thing which may be cleared up by reading sador to the United Nations, Mario Nobilo, the book. Today, black college students was misquoted as having said that President seem at least as likely to question the Ho- Tudjman supported the 900,000 figure. A locaust as white students—probably more retraction was subsequently printed. so, judging by the rise in black anti- J.E. BUSIC Semitism, on and off campus, and the pop- Embassy of Croatia ularity of "educators and leaders" such as In his review of Denying the Holocaust, Leonard Jeffries. This letter is not the place Paul Johnson writes that "denial activities in to try and explain black anti-Semitism, aside no case spring from genuine efforts to ques- from remarking that those who hate Jews, tion or revise established history or from or think they do, make it clear they are any concern for the truth, but are conducted looking for an easy target to express their by convinced fanatics whose anti-semitism hatred of white society, regardless of the long antedated any 'scientific' interest in legitimacy of the target. Look at the black Holocaust studies. A few gullible fish, like woman at Harvard who chose flying a swas- Noam Chomsky, may have been hooked, but tika as a way to express her outrage at a the vast majority of explicit deniers are mo- white southern conservative woman who tivated simply by hatred of Jews." flew a Confederate battle flag. Neither the writing nor the syntax is es- Some Holocaust denial may come from pecially beautiful here but the clear allega- sheer ignorance—the black woman at Har- tion against Chomsky is that he belongs to vard honestly seemed surprised that Jews the category of "explicit denier." May I in- were pai-ticularly offended by the swasti- vite Johnson to produce a single passage of ka—a tribute to the decline of American Chomsky's work that would substantiate history education. One has to suspect, such a grave and damaging claim? If he can- though, that much comes from efforts of not do so, he will owe an apology not just to some black leaders, and their many support- Chomsky but to you and your readers for ers, to maintain the black place as the "most treating such a serious matter in such a pro- persecuted"—the unfortunate ultimate goal pagandistic and deceitful way. in this era of the cult of the victim. They CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS lack the sophistication to separate the Jew- Washington, D.C. ish experience in this country from that of European Jewry—to recognize that Nazi In Paul Johnson's review of Deborah Lip- GerrnanActions do not detract from the his- stadt's book, he makes one small but very torical tragedy of slavery. These black lead- important error. Johnson refers to Fred A.
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