Herewith Part II of "The Importance of the Zundel Hearing in Toronto".
Yesterday we stopped with this paragraph:
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With the passage of time, it is ever more difficult, even absurd, to argue that the "complained of" paragraphs from the vast Zundelsite are somehow socially dangerous. During the past two years, Zundel's "case" has become stronger, given that several books and numerous articles and reviews have appeared during this period, both in Canada and in periodicals and web sites around the world, that parallel the supposedly hate-promoting Zundelsite documents cited by the Human Rights Commission. In that sense, Ernst Zundel's "sin" is that he is a man ahead of his time.
Probably the most important of these recent writings is The Holocaust Industry, a fervent and much-discussed new book by Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein, a professor at Hunter College in New York City and the son of parents who survived wartime internment in the Warsaw ghetto and German concentration camps. The Holocaust Industry (available from the IHR for $23, plus shipping) was accepted as an defense exhibit in the proceedings, and discussed in detail as part of my testimony.
Restrictions on Testimony
As a witness on Zundel's behalf, I experienced first-hand some of the absurdity and hypocrisy of Canada-style "human rights."
I first came before the Tribunal in December 1998, when I was closely questioned to determine if I would be accepted as a witness. After several days of interrogation and argument by the attorneys, Commissioners Pensa and Devins accepted me as an expert witness "in Holocaust revisionism as he [Weber] and others have defined that field," but permitting me to testify "only for the very limited purpose of establishing the context in which the Holocaust revisionist community operates." I returned to Toronto in early October to testify. At the outset of my three days on the stand -- October 4-6, 2000 -- the two Tribunal Commissioners and the anti-Zundel attorneys made clear that I would be severely, even absurdly, restricted in the scope of my testimony. In his interrogation of me, Doug Christie was obliged to phrase his questions in terms of how a given writing or event was regarded by, or "resonated" within, "the revisionist community." By carefully phrasing his questions to conform to the Tribunal's cumbersome restrictions, he was able to put "on the record" much of what he had intended.
On the first day of my testimony, Christie asked me about Zundel's place in Holocaust revisionism: "What part, to your knowledge of the revisionist field, has Zundel played in revisionism, specifically Holocaust revisionism?"
"Ernst Zundel," I responded, "is not a Holocaust scholar; he is not a historian. He doesn't claim to be a historian. He calls himself an impresario. He is a facilitator..." Before I could finish my answer, John Rosen, attorney for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, excitedly jumped to his feet to loudly protest that my answer was "beyond the bounds" of my expertise, and that I am "not entitled to give this evidence. This is an apology for Ernst Zundel."
Commissioner Pensa, apparently accepting Rosen's absurd objection, said to me: "You are not entitled to go into an apologia of Mr. Zundel." I replied by telling Pensa that what I had said is "not an apologia," and went on to explain:
» We [revisionists] regard him [Zundel] as a facilitator, a publicist if you will or, to use his word, an impresario. That is not an apology for Ernst Zundel. It is simply a statement of fact of the role that he plays in the [revisionist] community, about which I am quite familiar... He is not a scholar. He doesn't play the same role in the revisionist community or movement, or whatever you care to call it, that a Robert Faurisson does, or that I do, or that many others do. His motives are different. His goals are different... «
A good part of my testimony was devoted to trying to show that numerous statements in Finkelstein's book, as well as in other widely available periodicals and Internet postings, closely parallel -- often in even more strident language -- the supposedly "hateful" remarks in the "complained of" Zundelsite documents.
Mark Freiman, attorney for the Human Rights Commission, objected to our efforts to establish this parallel, repeatedly pointing out that the Tribunal had not qualified me as a historian or expert in text and document analysis. (This in spite of the fact that in March 1988 I had testified for five days in Toronto District Court as an expert witness on the "Final Solution"and the Holocaust issue in the second Zundel "Holocaust Trial." [See "My Role in the Zuendel Trial," Winter 1989-90 Journal.])
For example, when Christie asked me to compare a passage in The Holocaust Industry, with a passage in the revisionist booklet Did Six Million Really Die? (one of the "complained of" documents), Freiman objected: "This witness cannot opine as to the similarity between one text and another text... This witness is not qualified to perform a comparative analysis of texts."
On another occasion Christie asked me "Is Finkelstein the only contemporary source which has repeated the Holocaust revisionist themes?," a question that should have been permissible even within the constraints imposed by the Tribunal, Freiman protested: "I object for the same reason as yesterday, that it calls on the expertise of a historian." On other occasions Freiman similarly objected that I am "not an expert in comparative text or historical analysis," and that I am "not competent to analyze texts, to compare them with other texts, or to comment on history."
Finkelstein's "Holocaust Industry"
In going through The Holocaust Industry, Christie and I highlighted Finkelstein's indictment of the way that organized Jewry has fostered a deceitful and self-serving perception of history. As I repeatedly pointed out, Finkelstein's views echo points that revisionist writers and scholars have made many times over the years. He writes, for example, that given the "nonsense churned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics..." He also writes:
"The challenge today is to restore the Nazi holocaust as a rational subject of inquiry."
"Articulating the key Holocaust dogmas, much of the literature on Hitler's Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud."
"Because ["Holocaust"] survivors are now revered as secular saints, one doesn't dare question them. Preposterous statements pass without comment."
Israel "invents stories about the Holocaust" in order to "receive more money from Germany and other Western establishments."
"In recent years, the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket." Finkelstein also refers to "this double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants," and to "the Holocaust restitution racket..."
"The Holocaust," he concludes, "may yet turn out to be the "greatest robbery in the history of mankind,."
Commenting on one of these passages, I stated:
» It is a startling thing for revisionists that Finkelstein explicitly says what revisionists have emphasized over the years: that Israel and, by extension, others in the organized Jewish community, invent stories about the Holocaust in order to receive more money from Germany and other western establishments. This is a point that has been made repeatedly by revisionists over the years. It is startling for revisionists to see a Norman Finkelstein, a professor at Hunter College, affirming that same view as, in fact, he does in this passage. «
Tomorrow: What causes Anti-Semitism?
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Comments: -- Mark Weber / weber@ihr.org
Thought for the Day:
"i have heard or read on many revisionist sites that the zyklon-b was merely a de-laousing agent {which makes sence} so why do these jews get on t.v and cry and shiver and all so convincingly try to tell the non-jewish public that 6 million were gassed and then cremated ? are these people payed actors ?"
(Letter to the Zundelsite)