In face of such overwhelming proofs of the existence of the Holocaust, denying its reality is as inconceivable as doubting the reality of the earthquake that hit San Francisco.

        One can wonder whether it is worthwhile answering the Revisionists. Does one do more harm than good in bringing young minds to dwell on such awful aspects of humanity?

        On the other hand, it is a fact that Revisionists are cropping up, that their fundamental racial spirit gives signs of awakening in some European countries.

        It is urgent to prepare oneself to be able to react against the appearance of a Nazi spirit. Two things are particularly necessary:

        First, one must realize that the holders of a hidden Nazi spirit can (as the Nazi's did in Germany) begin to gain partisans by proposing measures that seem capable of solving impending problems such as reducing unemployment by expelling immigrants (or Jews); developing social cohesion by creating a scape-goat against which a majority can unite (Jews in Germany, immigrants today in France, where unemployment is very high (12.5%); giving hope to a desperate generation of youngsters by launching big works, etc.

        One must analyze what hides itself behind those projects. When President Roosevelt launched the management of forests in the Rockies to give work to youngsters during the great depression, there was no Nazi spirit background. When in certain European countries extreme rightists propose drastic measures against immigration, a spirit similar to the Nazi one can be detected.

        Secondly, one must analyze what made Hitler's crimes more vicious, more destructive of human dignity, more condemnable than other collective crimes committed by humanity during past religious or civil wars.

        Here, I will call the Bible to the rescue:

        The Bible says in Matthew 12:31a, "Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men."

        The Bible also says in Matthew 12:31b and 18:7, "The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." "Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."

        The rounding up at Oradour in France of more than 600 old men, women, and children (the whole population of the village) in a church that was set on fire because a sniper had shot one German soldier, is a war atrocity -- but committed on the spur of the moment, perhaps under exasperation at finding snipers everywhere; the men who committed it have already reached their level of degradation. They are killing but not degrading other people.

        The shooting of over 70 American prisoners during the Battle of the Bulge is another war atrocity, but committed in the heat of the battle.

        These acts fall under Matthew 12:31a. They must be forgiven with time, though not forgotten.

        Hitler's government gave orders to annihilate in the most efficient, streamlined, tailorized way, all the Jewish, Polish, and gypsy population of Europe. It recruited the directors, managers, employees willing (or not so willing but accepting) and capable to commit mass murder.

        But mass murder can't practically be carried out without committing the unforgivable crime: The offense against the Spirit of Man, in the victim as well as in his torturer, by reducing them both to an extreme degree of degradation. Physical, but also often moral, degradation for the victim (think of respites gained through denunciation, having sex with guards, etc.) Moral degradation for all of Hitler's servants and subjects all along the line. This falls under Matthew 12:31b and 18.7.

        The camp commander who had a lamp shade made for his wife from the skin of one of his human victims may be guilty of both types of atrocity: a) as a user of that lamp which reveals his own degradation, and b) by forcing someone to make that lamp thus degrading another man.

        Any gesture must be avoided that tends to blur the radical distinction that should be maintained between individual spontaneous atrocity and organized atrocity, such as in a genocide which necessarily implies the consecutive degradation of many men. That is why President Reagan's visit to Bitburg was, in my opinion, an unfortunate mistake. President Reagan's mistake may have been inspired by Chancellor Kohl for the latter's personal political interest just before German elections, precisely because that visit to a nazi cemetery could be stretched to a general forgiveness of all German's crimes.

        This fundamental difference between crime against men and crime against their spirit did not seem to be perceived by the President nor the general public when they said:

        "Forty years have passed, one must forgive; the Germans are not the only people who have committed atrocities." Both are perfectly true, but one must try to respect the distinction between Matthew 12:31a and Matthew 12:31b and 18:7, between spontaneous crimes that harm physically, and organized crimes that entail a moral degradation of the criminal and often of the victim.

        It's not always easy. For instance: when you are annihilating men, women and children, husbands or fathers, wives or mother, babies or teenagers, you just can't carry on a streamlined operation like carrying coal on a conveyor belt to a furnace. Mothers separated from their children will shriek and tear themselves to pieces and bite their aggressors and throw themselves against any obstacle. And Hitler's servants, while they are pushing them into a truck or gas chamber can't do it keeping their calm. They have to descend one more step of degradation and get into a state of frenzy, into a fit of mad cruelty. At that instant, in my opinion, they are less responsible than when they accept their job and their pay.

        The actors at Oradour or The Bulge should with time be forgiven, as well as must be pitied and confided to God's clemency: Not so the bottom line of actors of the Holocaust who were appointed to their infamous jobs because of their sadistic natural dispositions.

        The organizers of the Holocaust, however, must not be forgiven, at least by men. God will, in his wisdom and clemency, judge if Matthew 12:31b applies to them.

        There are mountains of documents to prove that the Holocaust was willed, directed, and encouraged from the top, but such a program involves necessarily the degradation not only of the victim and his torturer, but of all those who participate directly or indirectly in carrying it out:

-        Degradation of the public when the Jews are obliged to carry a yellow star, and the public does not react by wearing stars also.

-        Degradation again of the public, the police and the metro personnel in Paris when the Jews are confined to the last car of each train and the public does not fill that car to capacity.

-        Degradation of the truck drivers and train engineers when they have to carry loads (of Jews or prisoners) to grouping camps, then to slave factories, then to extermination camps.

-        Degradation of the presidents, vice-presidents, directors, etc. of the big German industrial concerns who received and worked to exhaustion the prisoners, even building plants inside Auschwitz.

-        Degradation of all the inhabitants nearby who suspected what was going on. Of the peasants who saw the trains go by daily bringing their load of victims.

-        Degradation of the German railroad system when it wrote (this is just an example) from Berlin on June 9, 1942 a technical official note to the SS, Walter Rauff, in charge of organizing transportation of prisoners (my translation from the French translation):  "The normal loading of trucks is usually 9 to 10 by square meter. In Saurer cars, which are very spacious, the maximum use of space is not possible. Not because of excess of weight, but because loading to maximum. capacity impairs the vehicles' stability on the road...."

        And again:  "Experience has proved that one could do without light.... However, one has observed that at the moment of closing the doors, the load presses always against them as soon as lights are out. This stems from the fact that the load hurls itself towards outside light if the lights are put out in the vehicle, making the closing of the doors all the more difficult. Moreover, one has been able to observe that, because of the disquieting nature of obscurity, shrieks burst out always as the doors are closed. It would therefore be advisable to turn on the lights just before and during the first few minutes of the operation."

        (Notice the term "the load" speaking of human beings.)

        Have I made clear the difference between what is forgivable by man and what is not forgivable by man?

        One must not forget and one must remain vigilant because the germs of intolerance, dictatorship, disrespect for man's spirit are present everywhere and, given a climate of indifference, could spring up and take over with devastating consequences.

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