Your Questions

Now, on to your questions. You have quite a few, many of which are rhetorical in nature. You took my questions as an opportunity to expound upon apparently every topic in "revisionism" which you find interesting (and simultaneously to send "open letters" to "World Jewry" etc). You'll have to forgive me for not taking detailed excursions down all your side roads.

• You ask:

  Why should we, Mr McCarthy, have a view of history supported by the force of a law?

  I've argued this with several German citizens who seem to think that censorship of Naziism will help prevent it from reoccurring. I disagree with them; I believe censorship is wrong. While I respect their opinions, I think legislating against free speech -- even flagrantly wrong, dishonest, hateful speech -- is a bad idea.

  This is also the opinion of the Nizkor Project (as I'm sure you know, since we say so very clearly on our home page.)

  Why do the Germans take extreme measures to prevent the rise of Naziism? They have a bit more experience with it than you or I, and they know what it leads to. They are understandably concerned.

• You ask:

  Imagine, to have a special law which states that 'Holocaust denial' is off-limits, is a criminal offence? [...] Why would the German legal establishment use a sledge hammer to protect at all costs an orthodox version of the Auschwitz homicidal gassing story?

  (Same question as above in different words. My answer is the same.)

• You ask:

  Anyone who makes wild claims about something as controversial as has Walendy will soon be exposed as either being a fabricator or a truth seeker. Would you agree with me, Mr McCarthy?

  I certainly would. "Soon" is a relative term, though. Purveyors of self-published newsprint pamphlets don't draw much attention. I imagine there are a lot of flat-earthers out there who haven't been "exposed as fabricators" either. Give Nizkor a few years. We'll get around to Walendy soon enough.

  Out of curiosity, do you think Walendy is correct about the enormous number of forged and edited pictures of Nazi atrocities?

• You ask:

  It was during her seminar that she informed us that the conversion plans for the Auschwitz mortuaries were now available. Similarly, British historian, David Irving, and American author, Michael Collins-Piper, also confronted Lipstadt about those plans. Why, if the plans prove the homicidal gassing story, did Lipstadt not take up Irving's offer of $1,000 to produce those plans?

  Wait a minute, there's a $1,000 reward for these plans? Hey, is Irving's offer still good?

  You may inform Mr. Irving that I will gladly accept his offer, if it is as you have described above. I propose the American Arbitration Association as mediator, under whatever means they find acceptable for determining whether his terms have been met, with the loser paying the AAA's fee.

  Again, this is a rhetorical question on your part -- I can't answer for Deborah Lipstadt, as you know. I suspect she ignored Mr. Irving because she felt that responding to him would only give him free publicity, as Mr. Irving will surely not agree to neutral arbitration of the offer you describe.

• You ask:

  I think Rassinere [sic] mentions a very low number - but such numbers were ignored by so-called mainstream historians. Why, Mr McCarthy? Even the six million total Jewish deaths figure is urgently in need of revision. Yet for some historians this number is set in concrete and anyone who dares question it is immediately labelled 'antisemitic', a hate monger' [sic], a neo-Nazi, a racist, etc. Why, Mr McCarthy?

  Rassinier was ignored by historians because he had no historical training -- he was a middle school teacher whose research skills were shabby at best. Vidal-Naquet discusses Rassinier

  If "anyone who dares question" the "number set in concrete" is called all those horrible names, perhaps you could show for me where Raul Hilberg (5.1 million) has been labeled a racist.

  I have "questioned" the figure -- and my research has shown it to be sound. Yet I have not been labeled a racist.

  Other sources which reject the number six million -- which you call "set in concrete" -- include Dr. Piper, head of the Department of Historical Research at the Auschwitz State Museum; Martin Gilbert (5.75 million); and Gerald Reitlinger (4.2 to 4.9 million). Oh yes, and the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (5.6 to 5.86 million). Where have these sources been labeled racist?

  Once again, your rhetoric has gotten the better of you.

  (See Gutman et al., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1995, pp. 70-72.)

  You go on to list a number of people at various times who have expressed belief in what you call "the 6:4 million figure." I can't tell whether these are people who believe that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust (true), or who believe that four million Jews were killed at Auschwitz (false), or both, or merely one or the other. You have tied together a known truth and a known falsehood, in an effort to imply that both are false, in another rhetorical trick.

  But then I've said for years that the aim of "revisionism" is to mislead.

• You say:

  If Leuchter's claims are outrageous, then he discredits himself, and so his claim that "The poison substance Zyklon-B was not used on people at Auschwitz", need not be feared,i.e. if it is false.

  Leuchter's work is scientifically bankrupt and devoid of any value, so clearly that even prominent "revisionists" are beginning to distance themselves from him. Not, however, apparently, the Adelaide Institute. If you'd like to respond to Leuchter's critics, I suggest beginning at http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/.

• You ask:

  During this year Professor Yehuda Bauer was again busy correcting the Asuchwitz [sic] picture, claiming the four million figure was wrong. The Auschwitz death book registers, obtained from the former Soviet Union archives in Moscow, listed 74,000 deaths. None of this information has been pumped into the public domain as have the alleged attrocity [sic] stories. Why not?

  The second sentence is a non sequitur. As I'm sure you know, no one claims that the Nazis recorded gassing deaths in registers like the ones found in Moscow. In fact, there is solid evidence to the contrary. So the registers prove only who did die -- not who didn't.

  Again, not being a member of the media, I cannot be expected to answer this rhetorical question.

• You ask:

  Mr McCarthy, have you read Leni Brenner's book on this topic? It's called 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators'.

  No.

• You ask:

  It was obvious to most persons I met that the second world war had been fought by Hitler to 'specially kill the Jews'. Why did the media not correct this distorted picture?

  The rhetorical question about the media is the same one you've asked twice already. It has the same answer.

• Much of your response, Dr. Toben, is a subjective diary of what, for example, you had "noticed" people had "shied away from" -- apparently constructed years after the fact. Do you really think it important to point out that in 1969:

  at the University of AUCKLAND, New Zealand, a vague figure of 6:4 may have been about.

  I don't see the significance of all this.

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