Interview with Robert Faurisson

by Phil Sanchez

Irvine,  California,  June 22, 2002

Robert Faurisson,  retired professor from the University of Lyon in France,  is considered the leading "Holocaust " revisionist researcher and scholar in Europe today.  From his early writing like "The 'Problem of the Gas Chambers '", (published in France 's leading newspaper Le Monde,  which stirred up a storm of controversy) and investigation into the diary of Anne Frank,  to later assistance at the Ernst Zündel "Holocaust " trials and to Fred Leuchter forensic investigation at Auchwitz,  and on to his most recent work,  "Punishment of Germans,  by German Authorities,  for Mistreatment of Jews During World War II ",  Mr.  Faurisson has repeatedly removed the toupee from the bald face lies of the Establishment 's "Holocaust "desirers,  driving them so crazy that they have outlawed the refuting of judgement of the Nuremberg Trials (usually without citing said judgement within the anti-revisionist laws),  first in France,  and now throughout most of western Europe.  We took advantage of his attendance at the Institute of Historical Review 's 14th Conference and interviewed him. 

This is Phil Sanchez here having a brief interview with Robert Faurisson who is from Vichy,  France,  and he is here to speak at the 14th Conference of the Institute for Historical Review.  Here 's some questions for you Mr.  Faurisson: 

Q:  You have had conversations of one sort or another with numerous "Holocaust "desirers,  such as Michael Berenbaum,  Debbie Lipstadt,  Otto Frank,  Raul Hilberg,  etc. , . . . Do you have opinions about any of them being honest about their believing the "Holocaust "tales?

A:  First of all,  I had a conversation with Michael Berenbaum in the U. S.  Holocaust Memorial Museum.  I remember exactly when it was on the 30th of August 1994. In 1989, Deborah Lipstadt had visited me in Vichy.  In 1977,  I had visited Otto Frank in Basel,  Switzerland,  and I had a conversation with him,  on the first day,  for five hours and,  on the second day,  for four hours.  As for Raul Hilberg,  I had no conversation with him but I met him at the Ernst Zündel trial in 1985 in Toronto,  Canada,  when questions were put to him while he was a witness for the prosecution.  Those questions were put to him by Douglas Christie,  the defense lawyer of Ernst Zündel,  but most of them had been written by myself.   It was a kind of a chance,  in a way.  It was an opportunity for me to ask questions to Raul Hilberg and for Raul Hilberg to answer,  or to try to answer,  to our questions.   Now to go to your own question:  you ask me if I had an opinion about any of them being honest or about them really believing the "Holocaust "tales.  Is that right?

Q: Correct. 

A:  I am unable to answer your question because I do not know whether the people,  either on my side or against me,  are sincere or not. It is difficult for me to judge if someone is sincere. To judge the sincerity of someone you need perhaps weeks, months, years. It is difficult to judge. And that 's why, in fact, I am not very interested in the question of sincerity. What I am interested in is:  what this man, or this woman, is saying, is it exact, or not?I don 't say "true ";as you know, I am used to say "exact. " And take the story (I don 't say "the history " but "the story ")of the "Holocaust. " Of course, , for me,  it 's totally inexact. I say totally. And I can prove it, at least I think that I can prove it. 

Now for Berenbaum, Deborah Lipstadt, Otto Frank, Raul Hilberg (for Otto Frank, it wasn 't about the "Holocaust, " it was about the Anne Frank Diary, okay?), you could divide those people into two camps:  in the first camp,  we have people who are lying, perhaps because they think that it 's necessary, sometimes, for a good cause,  to lie. That 's possible. It 's possible that they are in a way sincere. That will be the first camp. Then you have the mass of those people who really believe, because they heard about it. If you take Berenbaum, Deborah Lipstadt, Raul Hilberg, you can say that they have a responsibility in saying, for instance, that there was an order to kill the Jews or that there was a plan to kill the Jews;they had a responsibility in saying that. But other people, the mass of people who believe in the "Holocaust, "they have no responsibility. They are only repeating what they have heard. 

I am sorry because of my poor and broken English I can not say in English what I say in French, which is that you have, on the one hand, "les menteurs, "and, on the other hand, "les bonimenteurs "(a play on words): those who lie and those who repeat lies that they have heard from others. "Boniment "means gossip. They are gossiping. Do you say that in English?To "gossip "? I don 't know. 

Q: That 's a funny way of putting it, the take on it .  A: Okay. So I would say the liars and the gossipers,  something like that. 

Q: I think that with some of them, I think that with Debbie Lipstadt, or the guy in Switzerland who recently wrote a book (Fragments)about being raised in the concentration camps and then he was proved totally false. 

A: Yeah, yeah. 

Q: I can 't remember his name. 

A: I remember but whatever, okay. 

Q: She said that, even though the book is not factual, it 's still good as "Holocaust "literature. And that 's what I 'm wondering: perhaps she did not believe it but she thought the literature is still important?I 'm wondering how you felt, maybe you didn 't speak with her long enough to have an opinion. 

A: At the time Deborah Lipstadt visited me, it was before Binjamin Wilkomirski (his name was Binjamin Wilkomirski, his real name being either Bruno Grosjean or Bruno Doessekker). Anyway, he was lying. And he wasn 't a Jew. So, as you know, he is being put on trial by the Jewish organizations. 

Q: Oh, he was put on trial?

A: He is currently on trial, I think. Or it 's coming, I don 't know. So, of course, I understand very well that people, even like Hilberg or Deborah Lipstadt, could think: "Anyway, true or not, sincere or not, it serves the cause, our good cause. " But this you have everywhere;; not only the Jews are like that. You have that in the Catholic religion;you have what we call "le pieux mensonge, "the pious lie. So everybody may be like that, you see. 

Q: Do you know about Raul Hilberg having some sort of relationship with Norman Finkelstein?I don 't know if he is giving him information but do you think Raul Hilberg will come around to seeing the "Holocaust "in the same way the revisionists do, or is that just too far- fetched?

A: I think it 's too far-fetched. What I know is that the situation of Raul Hilberg is perfectly tragic. This man is, I think, something like seventy-five today. This man in 1948 began to work on what today we call the "Holocaust. "In 1961 he published the first edition of his book (The Destruction of the European Jews). In that book he dared to say, at that time, that there were TWO orders coming from Hitler to kill the Jews. He said that there was a plan to kill the Jews, that there were instructions given to kill the Jews, and so on.  And, in 1985, came the tragedy of Raul Hilberg when he was on the witness stand. Because at that time, he had really changed his story and he was ready to publish the second edition of his book. A really different one which appeared in the middle of 1985. To give you an example of how much he changed his story, this very man who had said that there were two orders from Hitler and who was asked to show those orders was, of course,  unable to show them. And he came down with a strange theory which is this one: he said that we don 't need to suppose that there was an order, or orders, we don 't need to think that there was a plan, no. What happened was,  according to the new Hilberg, "an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus mind-reading by a far-flung bureaucracy, "meaning the German bureaucracy!Which means that it is an explanation by telepathy!This man,  supposed to be a scholar, first said that he had proofs,  and then he had to confess that there were no proofs but "an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus mind- reading by a far-flung bureaucracy. " This is a total defeat.  At one point, I remember, all those who attended this remember very well, Hilberg said, "I am at a loss. "

Q: I remember reading that actually, in Michael Hoffman 's book. 

A: That is about Raul Hilberg. That 's the only thing that I can say. Recently he published a book, a tiny book,  the title being something like Sources of Holocaust Research: An Analysis. You should read it. Nothing.  It 's like void, totally void. You have nothing. Nothing is left. All this formidable building, hammered. What about the towers in New York?!The tower of Raul Hilberg does not exist animosité .  Q: On your run-ins with Jean-Claude Pressac: he seems to be seeking something from you. What is it that Pressac wants?

A: Now, Pressac also is finished. You should know that even Berenbaum and all those people, they do not want to have anything to do anymore with Jean-Claude Pressac.  Jean-Claude Pressac is a poor guy. He was a guy of the extreme Right. I learned this a few months after meeting him for the first time. He was engaged by Klarsfeld to write an enormous book. A really silly one. The title was: Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, published in 1989. In fact you had nothing in it on the gas chambers;you had many things on the crematories and so on, the ovens, and only speculations about the gas chambers .  Q: The ventilation. 

A: The ventilation, yeah!(laughter)He "ventilates "very much. You see, it 's wind. It 's only wind. It 's air. A- I-R, okay. Excuse my pronunciation. I noticed that sometimes he would say that he had been first on my side. And that he then left me because he had discovered that I was wrong. Now, wait a minute. First of all, never did Pressac visit me where I live in Vichy [in the center of France ]. Second: I saw him nly at Pierre Guillaume 's house, in Paris. And he was coming and coming back,  asking me for documents and so on. I saw very quickly that this man was unbalanced, not strong at all, and that I was wasting my time. So I told him: "You see, I am tired, I am overworked. Please, Pressac, leave me. I have nothing to tell you. " But the last time he came and he said: "I would like to have a conversation with you. " I said: "Pressac, once more, I have no time. Now, if really you want to have a conversation, I want you to tape it because you keep constantly saying that you have not said what you said. So I want to catch you at your words. " And he said, "Oh no. I don 't want that. " I said:  "So, you get out!" And it was finished. 

Q: What about in court?

A: Oh, in court. The poor guy, in 1995, came to court.  I must say that, in 1993, he had published another book.  The title in French was Les Crèmatoires d 'Auschwitz:  La Machinerie du Meurtre de Masse (The Crematories of Auschwitz: The Machinery of Mass Murder). I was sued; once more, I was on trial. I had decided with my defense lawyer to summon Pressac. I thought he would not come. And my surprise is that he came. The poor guy came. I had no right, myself, to ask him any question.  Only my defense lawyer had the right to put some questions to him. I decided that the essential question would be very short and very clear. So I said to my defense lawyer: "You have only one question to ask him, "and the question was: "Mr. Pressac, in your book,  we have sixty photos, documents, illustrations. Could you show us only one photo, document or drawing showing us a Nazi gas chamber?" Of course, there were none. There was not even one photo. You can not have a photo of something which is technically impossible.  So he went on, speaking about aeration and ventilation once more! (laughter)

And suddenly, as he was NOT answering the question,  the lady --we had three judges, the presiding judge being a lady, --said: "Mr. Pressac, you say 'ventilator,  ventilator, ' but a ventilator, it 's to ventilate. " ((laughter) She was a little bit naive perhaps. I don 't know. She made Pressac understand that he was not at all addressing the question. And Pressac suddenly said: "You see, you must understand, my life is very difficult, I cannot be here and there, you must understand, I cannot. " S Pressac also was "at a loss. "Pressac also is really finished. 

Something else. A book appeared in 2000 written by a young lady, who came and visited me in Vichy. The book was totally against us: Histoire du Négationnisme en France (History of Holocaust Denial in France). Her name is Valérie Igounet. In it she published a long interview of Pressac. And mind you, at the end of his interview, Pressac has a nearly total revisionist position.  He now says that the dossier (meaning the dossier of the people against the revisionists) is "rotten "to the core.  "We cannot save it anymore. It 's finished. "

Q: You once said that in France during World War II there were "two "Resistance movements; one against the Nazi occupation and a second one against the Communist terror. Could you, please, elaborate on the difference between the two but also go into some detail about the second?

A: In France, they constantly say "la Résistance "(the Resistance). They constantly talk about "la Résistance. " Even, with the time going on, they now don 't talk anymore exactly about "Résistants "but about "Grands Résistants " It 's always a "Grand Resistance. " All those people are supposed to have been "Grand Resistants. " And this is partly a joke of mine: I ask: "Oh, you say 'Resistance '! What do you mean by 'Resistance '?"And the people answer: "Of course, Resistance against Germany?" And I say: "Okay, I see, but you know, there was another Resistance. The people on the other side than yours were convinced that THEY were also Résistants. But Résistants against Communism, against Communist terror in France. "It began in June 1941 and went until at least the Bloody Summer of 1944. You cannot imagine,  today, the power at that time of the French Communist party, and how many people they killed because those "collaborators "were, or were supposedly, on the side of the Germans. You had very sincere French people on the side of the Germans. They were not in love with Adolf Hitler or even with the German people. They thought that the big danger for Europe and for France were those Communists coming with the Red Army. They wondered where the Red Army would stop. That was their question. 

In June 1942, Pierre Laval, who was a kind of prime minister, with Marshall Pétain, said: "I hope that Germany will win. " I guarantee you that Pierre Laval was not at all in love with the Germans. He added: "because,  otherwise, we will have Communism all over Europe. "

So, I warn you to be careful with this word of "Resistance " since, you see, most of the time people think of themselves as courageous, which is not really the case; most of the people are cowards. But they think that they are courageous. They are "courageous "because they "resist " to something. During the war, you had those people resisting to the German occupation, but you also had people resisting to the Communists who were assassinating so many French people at that time. 

Q: Were there trials for these murders?

A: Of course not. As usual, if you were on the good side,  you got medals, respect, money; if you were on the other side, it was exactly the opposite. That 's life. You must not be vanquished, that 's all. 

Q: So, after France was no longer under German Occupation, there were no murder trials for murders that were committed by the Communists during the Occupation?

A: We had very few of them. And once those people were sentenced --very, very few of them --they were,  how do you say that, "pardoned "?Yeah. There was an automatic amnesty, according to a decision of the government of De Gaulle. They decided that everything,  --listen to this, it 's fantastic --everything which had been done "in order to liberate France " until the First of January 1946 should be pardoned --I say "'46 "(the war,  remember, had ended on the 8th of May 1945, in Europe,  and the last town of France was liberated in December 1944). The simple fact that we had an amnesty for everything which had been done (laughter) during, let 's say, the whole of 1945, means that they kept on killing people. 

Q: "Reprisals "?

A: "Reprisals, " yes. . 

Q: I don 't know if this is a question that you can answer but it was a particularly French Communist group or were they just a Soviet puppet group?

A: No, a real and sincere Communism. 

Q: They did not want to be a puppet of the Soviet Union? They were French Communists?

A: Absolute puppet but I would say sincere puppet. 

Q: Now, about the way laws are written and made in France. Perhaps I am mistaken, I thought that there are a number of anti-revisionist laws made specifically to deal with you;are you ever consulted for the name given to each of these laws?

A: Consulted? Do you mean: Was I consulted?

Q: Yeah. 

A: No, of course not. And, in fact we have only one specific law. 

Q: What is the name of it?

A: We call it sometimes, "Loi Gayssot, "which is the name of a Communist, but sometimes also we call it "Loi Fabius-Gayssot. "Fabius is a very rich Jew, a Socialist but extremely rich. So, the anti-revisionist law of 1990 is a Jewish-Socialist-Communist law. Sometimes,  only among the people in the Paris courtrooms, they call it "Lex Faurissonia, "which, in rather poor Latin, means "The Faurisson law. "It is a law of the 13th of July 1990.  What is interesting is that it was published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française on the 14th of July 1990, which is the Bastille Day, and you know that the Bastille Day is supposedly the day of Liberty. So, that 's it. 

Let me tell you that I have been sued myself in the name of other laws. I have been sued so many times that I cannot give you even an idea about how many times.  I have been sued before 1990. Before this specific law.  For instance, a law saying that racism is forbidden.  They decided that, by denying the existence of the genocide of the Jews and the existence of the so-called Nazi gas chambers, I was committing a racist crime.  "Denying "is their word. In fact, I am not denying whatsoever. I am affirming, after researches, that there is absolutely no proof of this crime, okay. Or they would claim that I was defaming the Jews. 

Q: Defaming the dead?

A: The dead. That 's it. 

Q: Is there anyone trying to remove these undemocratic laws in your country?

A: It 's impossible. 

Q: It 's impossible?

A: It 's impossible. Let me tell you something rather sad,  but I expected it. You have some extremists in France of the Right. Their names, one name is very well known Jean-Marie LePen, and the other one is Bruno Mégret.  Okay. Both of those people, a few years ago, in their program had one point which was "we want the suppression of those laws against free expression. " A law of 1972 and this one of 1990. They do not mention that anymore. They are afraid to say "We want those laws to disappear. " They don 't DARE say it anymore.  It 's still in the printed program, the old one, but for the elections, they didn 't mention that anymore, because they know that if they say that they are going to be accused by the Jewish organizations of being on the side of the "deniers. " So they are shy. They are shy. 

Q: Okay, here 's maybe an odd question, I 'm not sure: It has been said that in France "Holocaust " revisionism is a field embraced mostly by Leftists and former Leftists? How is this?

A: My answer is that at the beginning, yes, because Paul Rassinier himself had been a Communist and then a Socialist. People like Pierre Guillaume, Serge Thion,  Gabor Tamas Rittersporn (a Jew) and other people were coming from the Left or so, a Left that you could call sometimes Leftist sometimes only Libertarian. Some of those people were even Jews, like Jean-Gabriel Cohn- Bendit, the brother of the famous Danny the Red. He was a revisionist in '79, '80, but all of those people,  except Peirre Guillaume and Serge Thion, abandoned revisionism. Sometimes they recanted even. It 's a taboo,  you see. It 's very, very difficult. T fight for revisionism,  it 's possible for a time but to fight for years and years,  it 's very difficult. It 's a kind of slow suicide. 

Q: Are you at liberty to discuss relationship with former Situationists and their followers? A: I will say so now you see, Situationists are like those animals, how do you call those animals of, who disappeared from the surface?

Q: Dinosaurs?

A: Dinosaurs. Situationists are something like dinosaurs,  so I don 't know anymore, any Situationists. There are still some. I have a name, I don 't know if I can mention him so I am not going to mention him. He is rather important and we could say that he was something of a Situationist. Mind you, some people, even very important people, very important, confidentially, and accidentally,  told me that they were on my side but of course they asked me not to mention their names. But I must say that there are very few. There are some. 

Q: Do you have any famous last words to end the interview with?

A: People very often ask me "why do you do that?" "Why do you keep on battling?" "Why do you want other people to join you and get in this battle?" And I say that, in fact, "I do not know. " (laughter) "I do not know why. "

I know someone who in 1979, when he received me at the Kennedy airport in New York, he was of German extraction and this gentleman told me, "Oh, it is wonderful what you are doing for Germany. " And I say, "Oh sir,  I am not doing it for Germany. " And he said, , "So, why are you doing that?" And I say, "I do it the same way the bird sings. " You see, (laughter), I am now 73.  (laughter) The bird has, lost his plumage. Part of his plumage, at least. And he keeps singing, he doesn 't even know why. And the minute before he dies he keeps singing. That 's the only thing I could say. 

I would say also that during the war I was very much against the German people. It was even inhuman because I thought that the German people --although they behaved very correctly, I saw thousands of those soldiers, and they behaved very correctly --I thought that they had to be killed. When I heard that Hamburg was so heavily bombed I thought to myself, "three thousand tons of bombs, why not six million. . . " I mean ((laughter) not six million (laughter). You see, why. . . 

Q: Twice as much. 

A: Why not twice as much. And suddenly after the war I realized that in fact they were human beings. You can be a Nazi, a Communist, a Jew, a non-Jew, and you are still a human being. 

So at the age of, let 's say, 17, I was profoundly disgusted by the Nuremberg Trial. Profoundly. Now I am 73 and I am as much overwhelmed and as indignant as a young man of 17. I should not be like that. (laughter) At 73 it should have stopped. It has not stopped and I don 't think that it will stop until I die. I don 't think so. 

Q: Well good for you.  Thank you for the interview. 

A: Thank you. 

This interview will be available on CD (and maybe cassette) later in August 2002 through:  

http://www.hoffman-info.com/news.html

read some of Mr. Faurisson 's writing visit the following:  

http://www.zundelsite.org/faurisson

In English:  http://www.ihr.org/books/faurisson/faurissontoc.html 

http://aaargh.vho.org/engl/FaurisArch/FaurisArch.html 

In French:  http://aaargh.vho.org/fran/archFaur/archFaur.html 

In German:  http://aaargh.vho.org/deut/FaurissonArchiv/index.html