Archive/File: orgs/american/oregon/banished.cpu gannon.002
Last-Modified: 1993/11/15

From oneb!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!medusa.hookup.net!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!thorwitz Sat Nov 13 19:11:51 PST 1993
Article: 19155 of soc.history
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From: thorwitz@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Ted D Horwitz)
Newsgroups: soc.history,alt.censorship,alt.activism,alt.discrimination
Subject: Holocaust Denial Nonsense
Followup-To: alt.journalism.criticism
Date: 11 Nov 1993 05:56:48 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University
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Distribution: usa
Message-ID: <2bsk70$qmp@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

Excuse me. I'm new on the net, and in perusing the Usenet newsgroups I keep
running across Dan Gannon's nonsense.

What planet is this jerk on?

The Holocaust was a well-planned program of government-orchestrated
assembly-line extermination. This is supported by the testimony of hundreds of
thousands of eyewitnesses, physical evidence, and thousands of documents and
confessions from the Nazis themselves.

Holocaust hoax? That makes about as much sense as claiming that this morning's
sunrise was a hoax.

1933-1945 was probably the blackest period in human history. The pervasiveness
of this tragedy staggers the mind. Almost every Jewish family in America,
including mine, had parents, grandparents, or other relatives or friends
murdered by the Nazis. They had their citizenship, their humanity, their lives
stripped away for no reason other than being Jewish.

The survivors (and there are still plenty) can give first-hand eyewitness
accounts of what they still see in their nightmares: the pounding on the door
in the middle of the night, arrest, deportation, imprisonment under the most
ghastly conditions .... death. Then the survivors look down at their arms and
see the concentration camp numbers tatooed on them as a lifelong reminder. Does
Gannon expect to convince us that this is all some 50-year worldwide delusion?

Gannon tries to obscure the truth with endless irrelevant hairsplitting. What
difference does it make if the Nazis really didn't make lampshades or soap from
Jewish remains, or if "only" 3 million or "only" 1 million died instead of 6
million, or, for that matter, if they died of typhus or malnutrition instead of
gassing? Does that make the Holocaust any less horrible? Are the victims any
less dead?

The Holocaust has lessons for all of humanity.

In his many speeches and writings, Hitler never hid his intention to do exactly
what he did. And yet this mass murder was carried out with the cooperation of
the vast majority of a supposedly "Christian" nation as a tool of Hitler's
irrational hatred. How could this happen?

Answer: much of the world outside the Reich tuned it out, did nothing to stop
it, even when faced with evidence, because it was simply too horrible to
believe.

And Hitler's accomplices within the Reich, from his top officers down to
the vast majority of the civilian population? They evaded their responsibility
and excused themselves from guilt with "I was only doing my duty to the Fuehrer
and the Fatherland". And some still do today.

Given the above, the only way to prevent something like this from happening in
the future is to remember the past. Those who do not remember are "prone to new
risks of infection", in the words of Richard von Weizsacker, President of the
Federal Republic of Germany, in a 1985 speech.

His prophetic words echo today against the backdrop of a Germany where neo-Nazi
goons are once again preaching hatred based on lies, marching in the streets,
attacking and murdering so-called "foreigners", and calling it "patriotism".


But there's an even bigger issue that I haven't seen anyone mention: in
addition to the 6 million Jews, Hitler's Reich murdered almost as many
(5 million) non-Jews, people who also were deemed to be polluting the
"aryan master race": gypsies, handicapped, retarded ....... who knows, perhaps

even some family members of Gannon, Mark Weber, Bradley Smith or Faurisson.
Think about it. In their frenzy, the Nazis weren't very picky.

The Holocaust was not merely a crime against Jews; it was a crime against all
humanity and decency.

Gannon deserves to be ignored; there is no controversy. However, history,
particularly Jewish history, has shown that some people will believe the most
outrageous lies if they're repeated enough times. I'm sure there are some
undecided people out there, watching these exchanges, trying to decide who is
right. If we allow Gannon's rubbish to go unrefuted, it WILL happen again.

Danny, Barry, Mark, and all you others ... please keep it up!


Ted Horwitz
Senior Computer Specialist, University Systems
Ohio State University

thorwitz@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

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