This is a continuation of what we titled "Breakthrough?" and posted previously on the Internet. Again, the correspondent is Jamie McCarthy of Nizkor. We post his letter here in full, along with Ernst Zündel's reply:
Mr. Zuendel,
I just now noticed your "Breakthrough" page, in which you quote my letter and respond to it. I agree fully that our correspondence should be public, but I would appreciate your notifying me in email when you put something related to Nizkor or myself on your web.
I infer that your response has been available since September 2, but I just noticed it a little while ago. I will briefly respond to some of the points you raise. I will ignore your rhetoric about the Holocaust itself; this is not the time to discuss that.
First, I must point out that it is ironic that you refer to this call for open discussion of your claims as a "breakthrough." I understand that you are used to your views being suppressed in the traditional media, Mr. Zuendel. And for the record, I note that I personally disagree with laws against free speech (though I should point out that I do not believe the Nizkor Project takes an official stand one way or the other on such laws). But on the Internet, open discussion on the Holocaust or any topic is not an exception, it is the norm. Ask Greg Raven, Bradley Smith, Fritz Berg, Michael Hoffman, or Ross Vicksell, each of whom has participated in Usenet discussions which were of course not censored in any way.
And I personally am all for open discussion - ask David Cole or David Irving, with whom I've corresponded via "snail-mail." The reason that it's ironic that you call this particular call for open discussion a "breakthrough" is that each of those deniers - Raven, Smith, Berg, Hoffman, Vicksell, Cole, Irving - has found it to be in their best interests to cease open discussion.
Each and every one of them has decided to leave the net, ignore my letters, or otherwise put an end to our communication.[*]
So, Mr. Zuendel, it will indeed be a "breakthrough" if you, unlike every other denier which I have encountered, do not turn away from this new, free, and exciting means of helping people learn the truth through an open exchange of ideas.
Indeed,
if you would like to begin a small "breakthrough" of your own,
I suggest you post some of your claims to the Usenet newsgroup alt.revisionism,
and try to defend them there. I guarantee you that there is no more free
and open discussion forum in the civilized world. You ask whether I have
"checked out this idea" with my "superiors." I must
point out that the supposition that I have "superiors" with whom
I must confer is fallacious -- I am, as I pointed out, the webmaster of
Nizkor.
My only "superior," I suppose, would be the Director of the Nizkor Project, Ken McVay, and I do not need to ask his permission to engage Nizkor in any sort of dialogue with you or anyone else I see fit. You go on to imply that perhaps Nizkor is yanking your chain: "It has been our experience in the past that lower echelon people who are ". . . believers in the Holocaust" are just as eager as we are to evaluate both sides of the issue, but that, in the past, players "behind the scenes" who have hidden agendas and political goals would not agree to a free and open debate."
I assure you, Mr. Zuendel, that there is no one "behind the scenes." When I request an open exchange between our two web sites, with our material cross-linked as much as it makes sense to do so, rest assured that I have no hidden agenda and that no one standing behind me will yank me off this project or otherwise inhibit Nizkor from achieving these goals.
Nizkor is committed to making available hyperlinked information about the Holocaust and about its denial, which includes links to hate material and lies such as those you provide at your "Zuendelsite." I am puzzled by your writing about discussing: "...how we could cross-link with you and get you to agree to cross-link with us so that both sides could be heard equally."
As I pointed out in my email of September 1: "We have a collection of links to other sites on the web that are related to the Holocaust and its denial, and among them, of course, yours. See http://www.almanac.bc.ca/other-sites/denial-promotion.html." Why would you have to "get [Nizkor] to agree to cross-link" when Nizkor has already done so? And I assure you that getting both sides heard equally is all I intend -- if each of our sites has links to the other at every appropriate place, I will be quite satisfied.
In closing, I note your final paragraph: "Please give us a couple of weeks so we can consult with other revisionists, scholars, our technical people and with our attorneys. We will be back with a response that will be fair to all." I am unsure why you would feel it necessary to consult with "other revisionists" and "scholars" to decide whether or not to honor your own calls for "letting both sides be heard" and for the "free marketplace of ideas."
Either the Zuendelsite is firmly committed to those ideals, or it is not. Nevertheless, a couple of weeks will give us enough time to put up our 66 replies to your 66 Q&A. Please notify me in email when you have made your decision.
We hope to hear that you will be willing to engage us in some sort of discourse about those subjects and others, and that you will take the first step by joining us in cross-linking together your site's Q&A and our site's replies.
[*] With the possible exceptions of Cole and Irving, who have not returned my letters for several months, but who may still maintain an interest in corresponding with me -- I don't know.
Jamie McCarthy
jamie@voyager.net jrm0@aol.com
This is in response to your letter of September 11, 1995.
I am very interested in a civilized Internet exchange on matters pertaining to the "Holocaust." I purchased a web site because, by its very nature, it allows for such an exchange. The web site system on the Internet is a wonderful, God-given medium whose time has come and whose time has never been so right. A web site makes it possible - barring intimidation and even terror tactics to have the Revisionist voice be silenced on the Internet - to offer an alternative viewpoint to official "Holocaust" dogma by posting well-thought-out, well-researched articles by serious scholars, historians and researchers for public scrutiny - without being subjected to obscene, childish shouting matches, personal character assassinations, and even physical threats.
Let us not be so smarmy and pretend the Internet is "free." We both know better - don't we?
When I first tried to set up a web site several months ago, my server was immediately subjected to massive corporate pressure to cancel my account - which is, indeed, what happened. My second server has already warded off a serious attempt to have us kicked off of the air and only his principled stand has prevented this, so far, from happening. There are ethnic-specific limits to enjoying the freedom of the Internet - let us not kid ourselves. All people are not equal on the Net.
Already there is world-wide agitation to silence the Revisionist voice. Whether or not we will in the future be allowed to continue posting serious articles and findings will be a fine test of the "freedom" you so extravagantly proclaim is there for everyone. We'll see.
People don't need to be told what they should or should not believe. They don't need to be told whom they should or should not hate. People can read. They have brains. They can make up their minds on who has the better evidence and, therefore, the better argument if they are given both sides of an issue, and if they have access to serious findings. Let it for once be an honest exchange via web sites, and let the best evidence and argument win. As you of all people should know, news groups do not provide such a forum because many of them exist in a sewer.
You suggest that you have driven off every Revisionist who tried participating in alt.revisionism. Indeed you and people of your mindset have - by your abusive, foul-mouthed methods. It wasn't done by force of logic, scholarship, or reason. Your Internet goon squad has never allowed a proper debate to happen. Discerning people understand full well what's going on in groups like alt.revisionism.
They see a bunch of screeching, screaming network terrorists monopolizing this modern medium to vilify, stifle and distort. If one subtracts barrels of verbal obscenities being offered by your side - along with ludicrous claims by so-called "Holocaust survivors," mediocre authors and outright frauds that are the hallmark of such groups - very little of substance is left. We want no part of that.
We have our goal - which is to shed light, not heat, on this subject. Our intent, as stated above and which bears repeating, is to offer an alternate viewpoint to the government- and media approved version of the "Holocaust," presented in a democratic forum. Scholars and researchers on both sides can post their replies and have the strength of their research and logic weighted, argued and judged.
It is our hope that many intellectuals will participate - both actively by offering their findings and passively by judging evidence. I am very willing to extend a hand for a cultured, scholarly and respectable exchange and facilitate an easy navigational system that would allow an open, searching mind to read, to reflect and to compare. I am not interested in a foul-mouthed mud-slinging contest with those who crow publicly about how they succeeded in hounding and harassing people off of the Net. Nor will I genuflect before the "Holocaust."
It is not yet a State religion, although some people think it ought to be - and are working hard to make it so. Why do I consult with my attorneys and scholars before I say or write anything? If I did to Nitzkor what you have done to me - post your site by name as a "hate monger" site on the Internet - I would be in prison tomorrow. You won't, because the "Holocaust" umbrella has given you that licence - to be abusive and unfair, yet deny me the smallest defense. "Hate laws" in Canada, as it turns out, are not on the books to protect everyone - and certainly not Germans who finally fight back in response to half a century of emotional blackmail, lies and wartime propaganda posing as history. "Hate laws" are on the books to protect those who have managed through clever overt legal and covert psychological means to use the "Holocaust" as a political weapon with which to club their opposition into submission and to remove themselves and their own shady actions from review and criticism.
I see no reason to notify you what I will or will not post pertaining to the Nizkor Project. You yourself stated that you consider e-mail pertaining to a pro-revisionist stance to be in the public domain. I simply took you by your word. Here is what I propose: I will create a link to Nitzkor at the bottom of every single document we post if you are willing to do likewise. I will not create links to specific documents to which you choose to respond, simply because of the time and costs involved in linking specific references. For us, this is a logistics and manpower consideration - we simply don't have the resources to do this as you suggest. We don't have tax-supported funds to help us in our efforts. We have a site and a system in place.
We have set up specific departments under which we post our documents, and we don't intend to modify our system to accommodate what you propose - namely article-to-article links. We can automate links at the bottom of each document, but we don't intend to hand-link every petty argument that you might choose to throw at us. We have to husband our resources and focus on our goals - not yours. And speaking of the major challenges we intend to put out for review - this for the benefit of those who are new to this controversy: Revisionists don't claim, and never have, that atrocities don't happen during war. They happened plenty during WWII. They happened on both sides. War causes monstrous suffering, and World War II caused suffering to both Jews and non-Jews alike. There is no patent on suffering.
The Revisionist argument, stripped down to its barest essentials, is threefold:
No doubt additional research will uncover additional facets of this unholy business called the "Holocaust" that has caused so much heartache between nations.
In the spirit of cooperation I suggest that you create an up-front Table of Contents on which you specify which document on our site you are referring to or challenge when you post your replies. If a challenge of yours merits a response, a proper response will be forthcoming from our scholars and researchers, and I will gladly post it within the departments we have already created on the Zundelsite.
If every document of ours has a link to Nizkor, and every document of yours (or even only a Table of Contents page summarizing your replies and pointing to your documents) has a proper link to the Zundelsite, there should not be a navigation problem.
It remains to be seen if the Holocaust Promotion Lobby people and their
lackeys can check their ghetto mentality at the door of the Internet and
engage in a civilized discourse - or if they merely want to transfer their
venom from the talk shows, the 
lecture
circuit and the printed tabloid papers to the Internet. We know we have
the truth on our side.
Truth cannot be destroyed. It needs no coercion. No bombs. No arson. No "hate laws." And definitely no obscenities.
Individual people can be hurt, have been hurt, and will no doubt be hurt again in the future because the "Holocaust" extortion industry is crumbling, and those who benefited from that racket are now desperately fighting back. It's happening world-wide.
We know that. So do you.
So - will it be a civilized exchange to get to the bottom of this unsavory business called the "Holocaust" so that some balancing and healing between nations and people can begin, or will it be more terror, more repression, more "hate laws" and more inflammatory rhetoric about "hate mongering" to get the public to engage in fighting someone else' war - which is not what Revisionists habitually do!
We will put up links to Nizkor on every single document within the next two weeks. We urge you do likewise and hope sincerely that you will. If the exchange proves beneficial, that would be wonderful. If it proves unproductive, degrading and abusive, we will remove our links.
And, in conclusion, let me say that all communication, from now on, will be official articles. I don't intend to keep up a time-consuming private correspondence with Nizkor.
Sincerely,
Ernst Zündel