I was away on an important trip for more than a week and just now arrived home to access my computer.
The Fredrick Toben "Holocaust Denial" sentence in Germany caught my eye. I hope to comment and editorialize on this precedent later, but for now I plead jet lag and borrow the following Hoffman Wire for those of you who may not yet have heard of the news.
THE HOFFMAN WIRE
Nov. 14, 1999
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor
http://www.hoffman-info.com
To subscribe or unsubscribe: hoffman@hoffman-info.com ==========================
The Story Behind Dr. Toben's Prosecution According to information in a letter from Robert Faurisson
(Editor's Note: Faurisson holds a PhD. from the Sorbonne. He was expelled from his position as professor of literature at the University of Lyon for casting doubt, in his books and articles, on the stories of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. He has been repeatedly beaten and fined in France, where revisionist skepticism is a crime. The following is from private correspondence between Dr. Faurisson and another party dated October 18, 1999. Because it is a criminal offense under the Fabius-Gayssot Act of 1990 to publish it in France, the responsibility for its publication on the Internet rests entirely with your editor, not Faurisson. Any errors or typos are my fault).
Dear ------
If my Australian friend Frederick Toben is in jail in Germany it is for three reasons--factors for which I share responsibility.
First, he became a convinced revisionist essentially by reading my own historical material, of which he has published several articles and essays in translation in his country.
Second, after visiting me for the first time in Vichy (France), he decided to investigate the alleged Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz (Poland) in exactly the way in which I had advised him to do so: essentially, to examine the remains of the so-called Nazi gas chamber or Krematorium-II in Birkenau and thus see with his own eyes that there were no holes in the roof for the alleged pouring of Zyklon B pellets, and to remark, consequently, that no gassing operation could ever even have begun in that place, the center of the entire "Holocaust" story. In other words, to state: No hole, no "Holocaust."
Third, it is because, after his second visit, that he decided to go and put some questions to a public prosecutor in Mannheim named Heiko Klein, although Dr. Toben and I both knew that he might well be arrested and thrown in jail.
A man deeply attached to his native land and sincerely distressed by the Niagara of lies told about Germany, F. Toben wanted to achieve something that no revisionist had yet done. I am the one who supplied him with the tools for the job in the form of the following ideas:
*On the one hand, we have "exterminationists" asserting that Germany committed an unprecedented crime, especially with an unprecedented weapon.
*On the other hand, we have "revisionists" asserting that this is a lie, a defamation, a calumny.
*The question is, "Who is right?"
*Where should such a question be put? Should it not be in Germany first, the people being, in principle, the most concerned?
*More precisely, the question should be put to "Bonn" (in April 1999, when F. Toben last visited me, Berlin was not yet the capital of Germany), or to "Ludwigsburg," or to "Arolsen-Waldeck."
*The trouble is that "Bonn" is interested in "political truths," not historical truths. The job of "Ludwigsburg" is essentially to define official truths about this or that camp. "Arolsen-Waldeck" closed its "Historische Abteilung" in 1978 precisely because the place was being visited by people asking questions.
And I said to my friend F. Toben that he should go and visit not an institution in Germany but an individual German, and as a matter of fact, the right man in the right place was the public prosecutor, Heiko Klein, the individual who seemed most certain of his right to jail people who did not respect the official truth about Auschwitz.
I remarked to him that he would thus be the first to go and ask an individual in authority: "Why exactly do you throw revisionists into jail?" He would in this way get the answer straight form the proverbial horse's mouth.
This had never yet been done by any revisionist "in camera clausa," eye to eye. It would be as if, in 1610, someone visited the presiding judge who had found Galileo Gailei guilty of heresy. Should we not be keen to have the account of that man? From a historical point of view, it would be very valuable today to get an individual answer from Pontius Pilate (assuming that the story of Jesus and Pilate is not mere fiction).
Of course. Heiko Klein is not a judge, only a prosecutor. Still, his power in the matter is considerable. His name will go down in history as that of a major figure in a major historical problem. Why not go and visit this man, even at the risk of being jailed? History deserves that such risks are undertaken and sacrifices made, for its sake.
When on the walk back toward his car at the conclusion of our meeting, I remarked to him: "Frederic, you know, don't you, that you may go to jail?," he replied, "Yes."
I said "Good luck!," and I, for one, thought that we revisionists were fortunate to have such people on our side.
There you have essentially what I would say if ever I were allowed to testify in court on behalf of my friend Frederick Toben.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Faurisson
Editor's note: After seven months' incarceration in Mannheim, Frederick Toben, PhD. was found guilty last week, by the German court, of "insulting the dead" with his writings about Auschwitz. He is free on bail. Amnesty International refuses to publicize or protest this or any other case involving the imprisonment of revisionists. Most people in the West have not been informed of Toben's heresy trial by the official organs of news and opinion and are completely unaware of it, while, for example, the arrest of Jewish persons in Iran on charges of espionage, is an international cause celebre.
=========================================
Thought for the Day: (referring to the Kosovo "Holocaust")
"The UN figures," said Perez Pujol, director of the Instituto AnatÛmico Forense de Cartagena, "began with 44,000 dead, dropped to 22,000 and now stand at 11,000."
He and his fellows were prepared to perform at least 2,000 autopsies in their zone. To date they've found 187 corpses.
(Letter to the Zundelsite)
Back to Table of Contents of the Nov. 1999 ZGrams