hiver - Historical Revisionism by Vrij Historisch Onderzoek

——————————————————————> Conseils de révisions / hiver winter 2007
religious grounds, were given a prominent role. Among them was Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a retired former
lecturer at the Jewish religious college in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Rabbi Cohen acknowledged that the
Holocaust had happened but said he saw nothing anti-semitic in Mr Ahmadinejad's comments.
However, exhibitions on the conference's fringes conveyed a different message. A series of
posters carried the words "myth" and "truth" juxtaposed. Under "myth" were widely accepted verities
of the Holocaust while under the "truth" label were opposing contentions.
One poster, simply headlined "truth", carried photos of Irving and Ernst Zundel, a prominent
German neo-Nazi also now in jail. Two of Irving books, Hitler's War and Nuremberg: The Last Battle,
were displayed along with several other Holocaust revisionist works. There were no books by orthodox
historians on the Nazi era.
A video referred to the "supposed gas chambers" and the "alleged final solution". A series of
photos showed British soldiers "forcing" German prisoners to remove corpses from a mass grave. The
caption suggested that the British were responsible for the deaths, saying: "The interesting point is
that the grave was established in the last days of the war just as the camp was being opened by British
soldiers." Another picture, purportedly of Dachau concentration camp, shows a smiling, well-fed group
of inmates.
Few visitors were apologetic. Mr Duke praised the event as an exercise in free speech. "It's a
shame that Iran, a country we often call oppressive, has to give this opportunity for free speech," he
said. "I think Israel is a terrorist state. It is the number one terrorist state in the world."
Ms Renouf said "terrible things" had happened to the Jews during the second world war but
claimed their own leaders had brought it upon them. "If people become anti-semitic, it's because they
believe the leaders of the Jews and are reacting to the anti-gentile nature of Judaism," she said.
Moshe Ayre Friedman, an Austrian rabbi, argued that the figure of six million Jewish dead had
come from a prophecy by Theodore Herzl, founder of modern Zionism, long before the second world
war. He said recent research suggested the true figure was about one million. "Politically and
historically, the land of Palestine doesn't belong to the Jews and should be returned to Palestinians," he
said.
But Moris Motamed, Iran's sole Jewish MP, labelled the gathering a "huge insult".
In Britain, Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust memorial day trust, said the conference
contrasted with a high awareness of the Holocaust among young Britons. "Three-quarters of young
people know when the Holocaust took place and 84% have heard of Auschwitz. Knowledge is the first
step to prevention. Denial is the first step to repetition," he said.
The Guardian 12 Dec. 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1970043,00.html
JARRING
Ahmadinejad Handshake Leaves Rabbi's Neighbors Crying Foul
By Sara Bonisteel
MONSEY, N.Y. — The photograph is jarring, to say the least. Why on earth would a rabbi from New York
travel to Tehran to embrace Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who says the Holocaust
never happened and that Israel should be annihilated
In Rockland County, N.Y., a short drive north from New York City, "love thy neighbor" has been a hard
commandment to follow in the weeks since a contingent of fringe religious leaders set out to shake the Iranian
president's hand.
This small suburban county has the highest percentage of Jews in the nation, and many if not most of
them have been seething since leaders of the ultra-Orthodox sect Neturei Karta attended the Holocaust
conference in Tehran and seemingly lent their support to known Holocaust deniers.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss led the Neturei Karta delegation to Iran's capital on Dec. 11 to participate in a
two-day conference on whether the Holocaust occurred. Among the other attendees were former Ku Klux Klan
Imperial Wizard David Duke and French professor and gas-chamber denier Robert Fuerisson.
"This kind of cozying up to tyrants, it's really unconscionable," said Holocaust survivor Walter Greenberg,
73, who lives in the county, only about 20 miles north of New York City.
Rabbi Michael Gisser, the executive director of the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Spring Valley,
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