February 7, 1998

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

In yesterday's ZGram, I introduced the young Jewish Revisionist, David Cole, to my readers and promised I would show that the Holocaust Promotion Lobby will shy away from nothing to stop the information outreach work of Historical Revisionists, even if it means contemplating to seriously harm or even "eliminate" (their word!) one of their own.

Today's segment will focus on the "Campus Campaign that was launched by Bradley Smith, Director of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. Bradley owns the internationally famous website, CODOH. ( http://www.codoh.com ) in my opinion, the best Revisionist website in terms of mainstream, common sense Revisionist material, bar none. Bradley and his two co-webmasters, Richard Widmann and David Thomas, have done an outstanding job streamlining and making comprehensible the often all-too-technical subject matter of Revisionism: That nothing but nothing "checks out" what people have been told about the so-called "Holocaust."

CODOH is of great interest to young conservative students across a broad spectrum of university and college campuses in America. This is largely thanks to an innovative, courageous and thought-provoking outreach program run by Bradley Smith himself that included what is simply known as "THE David Cole video." This video, as mentioned yesterday, shows the then Director of the Auschwitz Archives, Dr. Franciszek Piper, stating clearly that the so-called "gas chambers" in Auschwitz I are not original at all but are a tourist attraction, constructed ***after*** the war! In other words, they are a ***fraud***! Yet, they are still being shown to hundreds of thousands of children and tourists as being in the "original state."

In the Fall of 1997, Bradley Smith was engaged in a major and highly successful Revisionist outreach campaign because he had secured an anonymous sponsor who was willing to put up $50,000 for anyone who could manage to put the David Cole video ***unedited*** on national syndicate TV.

This CODOH campaign had the Enemies of Truth just foaming at the mouth!

According to a post on the ADL's website,

"Anti-Semitism that expresses itself through Holocaust denial has garnered much of its recent U.S. notoriety by targeting college students. Through campus newspaper advertisements, videotapes and computer networks, the pseudo-scholars who seek to inflame "debate" about the veracity of the Holocaust have made inroads at colleges and universities, attracting national attention through the controversies that erupt on campuses over the publication of their lies.

"Just as anti-Semitism on campuses cloaked itself as anti-Zionism in the 1970s and 1980s, Holocaust denial now serves as a campus vehicle for spreading hatred of Jews. By presenting their thesis as an academic question deserving debate, the deniers have found fertile ground among campus newspaper editors eager to demonstrate their commitment to free speech and the airing of controversial ideas. And through the student editors, Holocaust deniers have found an inexpensive method of reaching thousands of impressionable young adults who often have limited knowledge of the Holocaust and are in the process of forming their perceptions of world history. (To be sure, many campus editors have rejected efforts to use their publications for the spread of such propaganda)"

Then, after describing some initial successes Bradley managed to amass in the earlier 1990s, the ADL website post goes on to explain:

"By the end of the spring 1994 semester, Smith's ad had been published, in various formats, in 32 campus newspapers, although it had been rejected by many others. A particularly furious controversy erupted when the ad was printed in December 1993, in The Justice, the student newspaper of predominantly Jewish Brandeis University; the uproar was covered by national news organizations, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time magazine. The ad cost $130, but the check was never cashed as the editors donated it to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum -- which refused the money. About 2,000 copies of the paper were stolen from distribution stands the day the ad appeared. Campus police guarded the 4,000 new copies that were ordered and distributed two days later, the same day that 250 students held a protest rally.

"Smith and his colleagues also garnered widespread media attention when the ad was published -- along with an accompanying editorial and a banner headline reading, "An illustration of hate" -- in the Queens College Quad, the student newspaper at Queens College, a campus of the City University of New York with a 30 percent Jewish population. The resulting controversy was included in a segment on Holocaust denial on the CBS newsmagazine, 60 Minutes. That was followed by a one-hour Donahue program featuring Smith and CODOH representative David Cole."

Here I would like to add that this was probably the first time I consciously saw and heard of Holocaust Revisionism. (I had known about the 1984 arson of the IHR, but I really didn't know what it meant.) I remember Bradley as a burly fellow and David as a nervous, skinny kid. The Donahue audience was hostile, and at one point, during a break when something was said which was not later broadcast, David got up and left the podium in a huff. (Ernst, you know these shows better than I do. Was this on Donahue, or was it another show?)

What I particularly remember of this television segment, however, was something David said. When asked if he was being sponsored by Revisionist Ernst Zundel, he denied it and said, as I recall his statement: "He toured Auschwitz. I toured Auschwitz. What was I to do? Kick him in the balls?"

At the 1994 Institute for Historical Review Conference in Southern California, I met both Ernst Zundel and David Cole for the first time. As I remember it, this Donahue segment was played to the audience just prior to David Cole doing a program, and I felt sorry for both Ernst and David, with both of them in the same room.

I thought that David Cole's outburst was in extremely poor taste and very disrespectful of a man who was probably more than twice his age and a true veteran of the Revisionist movement, with many scars to prove it.

Then David got up and took the podium. Before he got into his speech, he apologized to Ernst, who sat in the back of the room. I remember Ernst said in his calm, grandfatherly voice: "It's quite all right, David. I understand. I fully understand."

I thought to myself then how differently I would have reacted to such a rude remark. But I listened to David Cole's speech, which was charming, funny, fast-paced, well-formed and delivered with genuine enthusiasm for Revisionism, and I felt myself, almost against my will, softening to this brash "Jewish kid". He had a delicious sense of humor, and I remember particularly some potshots he took at the so-called "scholarship" of Deborah Lipstadt, to the glee and applause of many people in the room.

But Ingrid is Ingrid, and principles are principles - and later, during a break, I found myself sitting on a bench in the hall, with David next to me and no one else around - and I could not bring myself to say a friendly word. I was that offended by what I considered a Jewish flip-flop to "suck up", as the saying goes, to a hostile Donahue audience at the expense of a Revisionist pioneer.

Later I would learn that many people felt as I did, and only a handful of the older, seasoned Revisionist veterans treated David as one of their own and with genuine warmth and respect. David must have felt the ambivalence of the audience at that convention - for that was, apparently, the last time he was part of the "in" Revisionist crowd.

Tomorrow: "The Jewish Defense League puts out what amounts to a death threat against David Cole"

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"The Jew has his social qualities quite as well developed as those of the Gentile; he is daily tempted by the social attractions of his host people, and if he is weak, may fall victim to them. The one sin his community will not pardon is apostasy to his creed and race."

(Arthur Keith in "A New Theory of Human Evolution")

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

Back to Table of Contents of the Feb. 1998 ZGrams