This book is the only report in print on the first of the two trials in Toronto of German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zundel. Some people regard his second, 1988 trial as the really important one because it was there that the Leutcher Report was first presented to the world.
For this writer both trials are of tremendous significance; the first, in 1985, no less so, for the reason that it represented one of the first times in history that so-called "Holocaust Survivors" were cross-examined by an adversarial attorney (barrister Doug Christie) for the defense.
As a result, every single "infallible eyewitness to the gassings," including one of the super-stars of survivordom and eyewitnessdom, Rudolf Vrba, author of I Cannot Forgive were shown to be very fallible indeed.
The top "Holocaust" scholar at the time, Dr. Raul Hilberg, author of the monumental tome, The Destruction of the European Jews, also testified. (Hilberg went on to become Norman Finkelstein's mentor; Dr. Finkelstein has nothing but praise for Hilberg, notwithstanding Hilberg's assistance to the prosecution in a case aimed at sending a book publisher to prison).
Hilberg was cut to shreds by Christie's cross-examination, which was fueled by the French revisionist historian Dr. Robert Faurisson, a member of the defense team. It was actually a debate between the two academics, with Mr. Christie acting as Faurisson's polemically-skilled mouthpiece.
Consequently, with the 1985 Great Holocaust Trial we have two astonishing landmarks: the collapse of supposed "eyewitness" testimony of homicidal gas chambers in Auschwitz, and the defeat of the most prominent "Holocaust" historian in the world.
The book has been out of print for fifteen years. A whole generation of new recruits to revisionism have never read it. We could not afford to print a huge print run. We went the frugal, print-on-demand route and published several hundred copies. We gave away what we could afford to -- a few dozen -- to reviewers and prominent revisionists -- in order to stimulate publicity, reviews and distribution.
Thus far this book gathers dust. We have sold perhaps 90 copies. The apathy is incredible. I knew revisionism was in rough straits with the collapse of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), but I had no idea it was this sunk in paralysis and indifference.
Every major revisionist contacted has either said nothing or mentioned it in the briefest possible way. A few fulfilled their "duty" by briefly alluding to Dr. Faurisson's reflection on the fate of Fred Leutcher which jogged his memory after having read this writer's new introduction to the book; that's been the sum total of the matter.
The big revisionist news is Samuel Crowell’s The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes which we have mentioned here. (Buy it here: http://ninebandedbooks.com/?p=312)
In fact, we not only included ordering information, we drew attention to a lengthy and highly interesting interview with Mr. Crowell which the book's backers did not ask us to promote.
Crowell's book is an important contribution. I hope the generation of revisionists that has been recruited in the past ten or fifteen years will study it and I hope they will do the same with The Great Holocaust Trial.
We have no ego-investment and not much financial investment in The Great Holocaust Trial. It was a bestseller for the IHR throughout the 1980s and heavily promoted around the world. Anyone who promotes it now is welcome to omit my name from any review or advertisement.
We would have liked to have published it at a price lower than $19.95 (plus shipping). But to do that we would have had to publish at least 1,000 copies. With that quantity the economy of scale creates a lower production cost; but the venture capital was not there. We saved our "nickels and dimes" and approached a print-on-demand publisher. When you print four hundred books rather than a thousand, you pay a lot more and those costs, unfortunately, raise the price of the book.
So this is not a get rich quick scheme or an ego trip. I'm not sure why I even have to say as much, except that I cannot comprehend how the only revisionist account of Mr. Zundel's world historic trial in 1985 is being allowed to slide down the memory hole. It's inconceivable.
I've had some folks who don't know what kind of dynamite this book represents, ask why they can't buy it online from an online store. I forgive your naiveté. Ernst Zundel was imprisoned for seven years in six different prisons in three separate countries, having been released in Germany only a year ago under a draconian gag order that silences one of the most eloquent voices of defense of the German people.
If we discard the Canadian and German government alibis, we discover that Mr. Zundel was imprisoned all those years because he knocked so gigantic a hole in the gassings tale that the "never forgive, never forget" crowd sought vengeance. And they achieved it.
Furthermore, I cannot set foot in the native Germany of my ancestors because I will be jailed within hours or days for the “crime" of having written The Great Holocaust Trial.
If it was sold online, the online store would be closed in short order (except for Amazon which is too big to be shut down - see below).
The vengeance of the enemies of truth will be doubled or tripled in exacerbating impact if we allow Zundel's struggle to be forgotten; part of his heroic struggle is recorded in The Great Holocaust Trial.
I'm a writer. I'm not an impresario, p.r. man or three-ring circus coordinator. Sometimes I wish I were because that kind of flash and energy can make the difference between circulation and oblivion. I rely on others to get the word out, set up the distribution networks and get behind something truly worthwhile.
To the average guy with curiosity about the unofficial and damned side of World War II history I can only say, "Buy a copy."
To the full and part-time revisionists who have ignored this book I can only wonder to myself aloud, how do they imagine we will ever build a movement with so little unity and so much ennui?
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THE GREAT HOLOCAUST TRIAL
The Landmark Battle for the Right to Doubt the West's Most Sacred Relic
Large format (7 x 10) illustrated, quality paperback. 181 pages.
This title can be ordered at this time only by postal mail or from Amazon
$19.95 PLUS shipping: $3.50 shipping in the U.S.A.
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Personally, I don't think it's revisionists that the West needs, rather what it needs is critical-thinking ability. That, I think, was the message of Professor Butz's tome. Even some sense of proportion would be a great start. Even some sense would be.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, why revise a mess of fantastical rubbish? If people can't see it's rubbish, they have some bigger problems than holding one incorrect belief or group of beliefs. They're not being made fools, they are fools. Maybe we should take steps to preserve that heap of rubbish before the industry gets its act together. It only really started with full force in the 90s, right? If I were Elie Wiesel, I would be planning a revised edition of "Night". You know, something that doesn't mention his decision (literally, free choice given to him by the Nazis) to join the Auschwitz staff in its retreat before the advancing Soviets. Or the medical care given to his father. Or the geysers of blood. Or...
Ultimately, it's for the German historians to write the history of their own country as accurately as they can. The problem is that the laws of the country don't allow that. Someone might say the U.S. has that freedom yet hasn't put it to much use. True. But one can't expect the court historians there to help an enemy out of its prison. The Holocaust is, among other things, meant to keep Germany down. If the U.S. could keep Russia and China down through similar devious means it would. It can, in Germany's case, and so does. I believe that as long as Germany has to bow to the U.S. or the U.K., it won't be able to even change its own laws. In point of fact, Germany didn't even make those restrictive laws - they were imposed on it by the victorious Allies.
I think there's an important point here, not just an excuse: until the U.S. empire falls, until Germany changes its laws regarding Holocaust denial, nothing will be done to correct the official account. (And it's the official account that matters to the vast majority of people, not what someone writes in a heretical work.)
Finally, while I'm aware that revisionists have had an effect, I think the effect has been mostly increased propaganda effort by the priests of Holocaustianity, and a slightly less ridiculous doctrine. I think that's as far as revisionists will get without the above mentioned changes. It's why I don't, personally, spend time in educating myself or others about the Holocaust anymore. It's not exactly rocket science anyway, as I've been saying. I don't think anyone will have to fear that the Holocaust will ever have more than social proof on its side.
You should perhaps think of releasing it as an ePub or some other e-book format (I would not choose Kindle, as Amazon might ban it); the costs of e-book production are low, there are no transportation or storage costs, and readers are moving more and more to electronic formats (this is especially true of avid readers who actually read and who are not just 'book-collection wankers').
ReplyDeleteI have not bought a physical book for several years now. If an audiobook is available I get that; if not, an e-book.
And be aware: if YOU don't produce an e-text of the book, someone else will. Far better for creators to generate e-texts themselves (many users will buy an e-text even if a pirate is available, if they feel that the work's authors are worth supporting).
I'm someone whose personal experience at the hands of European Holocaust law went totally un-noticed, un-reported and so forth: I was put in a cage in France for this blog post about the imprisonment in Australia of Frederick Toben. That post resulted in an accusation of 'negationnisme et nti-semitisme'.
It became clear during the 'investigation' that the case was motivated by bad faith on the part of the complainant (a 50-year old 3rd grade teacher who lives in Los Angeles). However while I was in the cells, my passport was mysteriously lost and thus being 'sans papiers' I was thus deemed to be in France illegally. Had it not been abundantly clear that the post in question was all about freedom of expression, I would also have been in a longer-term cage.
Anyway... think about providing an e-text. I would download and pay for it just to annoy the 'correct line' ideologues who think they have the right to try to control what we think, say, write or read.