The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

250 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
for the calamities of the 20th century and a justification to keep their
various spoils and, most of all, their moral high ground. In addition, a
simple black and white approach to history and politics – with the good
guys here and the evil guys there – facilitates the manipulation of the
masses. The scarecrow “Hitler” can always be employed against any
enemy in justification for a war (Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, etc.), and in comparison to Auschwitz and all
that’s associated with it, any other government crime, which is in need
for a cover-up, can be portrayed as being not that bad. This is why they
all love to maintain this wartime propaganda, including the present
German government, which is in constant need of proving that they are
now with the good guys.
But back to Byford. He even mentions the common fact that orthodox
Holocaust historiography commits outright forgeries by “editing”
embarrassing witness statements:
“Testimonies were […] full of ‘contradictions, vague or imprecise
claims, repetitions, etc.’ Editors, therefore, faced the task of
eliminating all ‘inconsistencies in the data which might create doubt
in the reader’s mind about what is true and what is not.’ Historians
or non-historically trained writers […] were asked to work through
the testimonies and ‘flag any politically sensitive content so that the
Editorial Board can take a collective decision on these issues.’” (p.
33; as an example for such a manipulation see the case of Filip Marjanovi,
pp. 34f.)
By so doing, Byford goes on, the editors
“[…] selected from each testimony those elements that confirmed
existing ‘truths’ and perpetuated the dominant culture of memory.
There were, therefore, no credible witnesses as such, and no survivor
was a ‘living, eloquent witness to Nazi crimes’ per se. There
were only usable stories, or rather fragments of testimony deemed
‘believable’ by those who selected them for publication.
What is especially important however is that it was precisely this
kind of selectivity and the reasoning behind it that put pressure on
survivors to produce ‘good’ testimonies and modify their accounts in
the direction of greater ‘plausibility.’” (p. 38)
Byford also makes some very interesting, revisionist observations
about other causes for false witness statements:
“A fear rumor is a piece of unverified information (which is not
necessarily untrue) which reflects the fears and anxieties of the pop-