SMITH’S REPORT On the Holocaust Controversy No. 146 www.Codoh.com January 2008 Challenging the Holocaust Taboo Since 1990 THE MAN WHO SAW HIS OWN LIVER Introduction: Death and Taxes Richard “Chip” Smith Nine Banded Books is a new publishing house that has chosen to make my manu- script, The Man Who Saw His Own Liver, its first publication, which is an honor I very much appreciate. Chip Smith is the head honcho there and has done everything right, be- ginning with the imaginative idea of transposing the format of my one-character play, The Man Who Stopped Paying, into that of a short novel, The Man Who Saw His Own Liver. Not one word has been changed. It has been formatted in a simple, unique, and imaginative way, and is followed by a coda that, again, is an imaginative choice that never would have occurred to me. The Man Who Saw His Own Liver is at the printer now and we expect to have it to hand the first week in February. Following is the elegant and rather brilliant introduction written by the publisher. radley Smith is one of those writers. Like Hunter Thompson or Hubert Selby; like B Brautigan, Bukowski, or the Beats. You read him when you’re young. You read him with a rush of discovery never to be forgotten. The prose is clean and relaxed and punctuated with a distinct, tumbling, rhythmic flair. It goes down easy. It makes you want to write. The world Smith made is suffused with a restless vitality that feels personal and true. Everything unfolds as pitch-perfect Zen comedy, where wanderlust and quiet desperation harmonize with the dimly consoling romance of existential resignation. Reading Bradley Smith would dreams and books. He writes from lem came only when Bradley be a rite of passage. Except that it experience about war and bull- found his subject. There’s that ru- isn’t. Hipster clerks who trade in fighting, and that time when he ined passage from Job: “I was not the semiotics of outlaw literature was asleep in a Mexico City jail in safety, neither had I rest, neither have never heard of Bradley and a cellmate took a shit on his was I quiet; yet trouble came.” Smith. Or, if they have, chances foot. He writes, lyrically at times, And so it did. Not that he are their familiarity will be shaded about nature; about family and wasn’t asking for it. The broad by poisonous misapprehension. friendship and sin and shame, and strokes. A young man goes off to Bradley Smith writes about the the tragicomic folly of bureaucracy inner life as revealed through and organized religion. The prob- Continued on page 13 tremendous influence on my sel engine experts, scientists, or LETTERS views. engineers who would publicly en- I want to hear from you. I read […] dorse his “Nazi gas chamber” everything you write. I regret that I I ask you to do two things: take theories. This should suggest to am not able to respond individu- the time to be grateful for and ap- the reader that his “Nazi gas cham- ally to each correspondent. I may preciative of your closest friend ber” theories were largely worth- publish your letter here. I may edit and don’t assume that he or she less. If his research did indeed re- it for length and/or content. Please will be around forever, because fute Holocaust revisionism, our make it very clear to me that I can, God only gives us this day. opponents most likely would have or cannot, use your name. Second, please if you can, send used it. a check or money order however Chuck Provan was a fine hu- Michael Hoffman large or small, to: Mrs. Carol Pro- man being, family man, theolo- Tuesday, December 11, 2007 van, 410 W. Main Street, Monon- gian, Bible scholar, and public From a public letter distributed via gahela, PA 15063. And please speaker. He even made a contribu- http://www.revisionisthistory.org/ pray for her and the surviving Pro- tion to revisionist historiography. I Charles D. Provan has died. I van children. I will tell you more have no intention of denigrating am at a loss for words. I only wish about this fine man and nonpareil his memory. Nevertheless, his at this juncture to notify the Chris- scholar in the future. For now suf- theories concerning the “Diesel gas tian and revisionist communities, fice it to say that the loss to me is chambers” were largely foolish. I that Charles D. Provan of Monon- more than words can express, but I am in the process of writing an gahela, Pennsylvania has passed submit to God’s will. article about this for CODOH. away from natural causes. He was See articles he wrote at IHR.org approximately 52 years of age. He and this one below: Bradley Smith leaves behind his widow, Carol http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n1p It was a dark fall night in the and nine children, some of them 20_Provan.html early ‘90s and I was traveling quite young. He was predeceased alone on a revisionist media speak- by his eldest son, Matthias. Paul Grubach ing tour, driving a rented car, and The loss to this writer is incal- Chuck Provan, the revisionist was looking for Chuck Provan’s culable. Chuck was one of my best who believed in the “gas cham- car in the parking lot of a Burger and closest friends and one of the bers,” has unfortunately passed King in Monongahela, Pennsyl- finest Christian men it has ever away. I had no intention of writing vania. When I spied what I thought been my privilege to know. He had anything else about his “Nazi gas was the car, I saw the heads of a great love for and obedience to chamber” theories until I noticed three kids looking out the back God. that influential sources are now window to see what kind of fellow His knowledge of the Old and claiming he disproved the Holo- their dad was waiting for. New Testaments was vast and he caust revisionist view of the “Die- Chuck had invited me to stay at was one of the best and most sel gas chambers.” For example, his home. I remember the warmth learned modern critics of the Tal- in the online Wikipedia encyclo- of the old kitchen, he and his wife mud, having published a great deal pedia, we read: “Provan has dem- Carol and a few kids seated round of material on that subject in the onstrated the scientific feasibility the table gossiping and laughing pages of Rev. Herman Otten’s of mass murder by diesel gas vans and talking about matters we Christian News newspaper. More against the thesis of Friedrich P. thought important. He and Carol recently he has been writing col- Berg.” were deeply Christian, while I was umns for Christian News on Old This is blatantly false. First of already an empty vessel, as my Testament exegesis. He was the all, Fritz Berg rebutted most (if not wife has it. He was a Christian author of two books, The Bible and all) of Chuck’s “Diesel gas cham- scholar while I was a simple Birth Control and The Church Is ber” claims. Second, despite the writer. He ran a printing business Israel Now. fact that Holocaust revisionism’s that made a profit, while I was Chuck assisted me in my re- opponents were well aware of his committed to a business that was search, but to say that is an under- work, there was not one orthodox not a business and had little hope statement, since he was a pillar Holocaust journal that would pub- of ever becoming one. upon whom I depended. He was a lish his work, nor were there any Chuck had an inclusive nature. orthodox Holocaust scholars, Die- He welcomed me to his deeply 2 Christian home and family when I hear an angry or complaining word poor quality. I was not encouraged was not a Christian. He welcomed spoken in his house by either him to read a text supported by such an our talk about revisionism, while or Carol or any of the kids. Charles illustration, a fact that I now regret. he doubted much of what I be- had his finger on something. With regard to the diesel gas lieved. In the back of his ample At the IHR conference, I be- claims worked out by Fritz Berg printing shop he demonstrated to lieve it was in 2000, maybe 2002, and challenged by Chuck, my in- me how he made his video show- Chuck had put together a photo- stincts tell me to go with Berg. ing how many living bodies could copied booklet addressing Krema Berg is the one who has done the be squeezed into one square meter II, allegedly proving that the holes work, he has been focused on the of space. I found the demonstration that were supposed to have been in issue for two decades and longer, unbelievable. He was not insulted. the roof of the Krema to pour the his work has been out there to be He printed a flyer for me to dis- Zyklon crystals down were in fact examined by industry profession- tribute at Penn State University there. This was a big issue in the als, and none have done anything where I was to speak, but where ‘90s. The cover of his booklet con- significant to discount it. As of the talk was cancelled.