I’ve done research on Ben Freedman. I posted a garbled version of my
research to alt-revisionism, but here’s a copy for reference.
BEN FREEDMAN, ARTHUR BUTZ and EMBARRASSED REVISIONISTS
This is a pretty convoluted story, but I’ve tried to
present it in logical order: Benjamin Harrison Freedman
wrote in a publication, “Common Sense” on May 1, 1959:
“On February 22, 1948, the New York Times published
figures taken from their 1947 secret census indicating
a minimum of 16,150,000 and a maximum of 19,200,000
so-called “Jews” in the world for 1947. Through the
courtesy of Mr. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of
the NY Times this author conferred on February 23,
1948 with Commander Baldwin [NOTE: He refers to Hanson
Baldwin, military editor of the Times at the time who
wrote a weekly column for the Sunday paper — this
will be important later on in this discussion] in his
office where this author examined documents fully
supporting the figures published by the NY Times on
February 22, 1948. This author was allowed to examine
the file containing the results of the searching
investigations conducted by the NY Times through its
own offices throughout the world and with the
collaboration of governments and religious bodies in
those foreign countries.”
WHO WAS BEN FREEDMAN, BY THE WAY?
Benjamin Harrison Freedman was the originator of the
theory that today’s Jews are not the descendants of the
Jews mentioned in the Bible, but rather descendants of the
Khazars, an Asiatic people who occupied Southern Russia
(Mongolians, no less) during the seventh century, who had
converted to Judiasm. He was born a Jew in New York in
1890, but called himself a fascist and an “honorary Aryan”.
When WWII broke out he supported of Hitler and predicted
Germany would win the war. [More about Freedman and a
debunking of the Khazar theory avalable on request.]
WHY IS FREEDMAN’S NUMBER IMPORTANT?
Ben’s number of “a minimum of 16,150,000 and a maximum
of 19,200,000” were intended to show that the number of
Jews had risen after the war, thus proving the Holocaust
death numbers were exaggerated. It was picked up (usually
rounded off to 15 to 18 million for some reason) by various
Holocaust revisionists over the years.
FOR INSTANCE:
George Lincoln Rockwell, late Fuehrer of the American
Nazi Party, gave an interview to “Playboy” magazine in
April, 1966, where cites Hanson’s figures–but just the
higher one (18 million) — Then he adds the 6 million Jews
exterminated by Hitler, and comes up with a total of 24
million world Jewish population for 1948. He compares 24
million with the 1939 World Almanac figure for world
Jewish population: 15,688,259 in an attempt to prove that
8,311,741 Jews appeared on the planet between 1939 and
1948.
Another (more relavant) example: In 1976, Arthur Butz
wrote “The Hoax of the 20th Century”–a book that supposes
that the Holocaust is a Zionist plot and that 6,000,000
Jews did not die at the hands of the Nazis. In that book,
in a discussion of pre- and post-war population figures (p
13) Butz stated:
“Hanson Baldwin, N.Y. Times Military expert, in an
article written in 1948 dealing with the then forthcoming
Arab-Jewish war on the basis of information available at
the UN and other places, gave a figure of 15 to 18 million
world Jewish population, as well as figures for such things
as Jews in Palestine, Jews in the Middle East, Arabs in
Palestine, total Arabs, total Moslems,etc. (footnote 6).”
Hanson’s 02/22/48 article (NY Times, page 4) was
entitled “Armies for Palestine: Need for International
Force of 70,000 Believed Indicated as U. N. Faces Decision”
(this was an article about a possible Arab-Israeli war).
Buried in the text was this:
“. . . The Jewish areas of Palestine are an enclave
surrounded by Arabs. There are 650,000 to 700,000 Jews in
Palestine and about 1,250,000 Arabs. Another 500,000 Jews
inhabit other Arab countries in the Middle East. The Arab
population these states, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Trans-Jordan, is more than
30,000,000. In these countries, the Jews are tied by
bonds of religion to the rest of the fifteen to eighteen
million Jews of the world, and most of the Arabs share
their religion with the rest of the world’s 221,000,000
Moslems…”
[NOTE: in context, we see that while Baldwin provides
literal numbers for the various population figures (i.e.
1,250,000), he gives figurative numbers (i.e. “fifteen to
eighteen million”) for the estimated population of Jews.
It would seem he didn’t think it was important to get the
number exact for this article. Ironically, he was trying to
show how FEW Jews there were compared to Moslems, but
that’s another story.]
Getting back to Mr. Freedman. Remember his “secret
census”, his visit with Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Baldwin, and
his search through a “file containing the results of the
searching investigations conducted by the NY Times through
its own offices throughout the world and with the
collaboration of governments and religious bodies in those
foreign countries”? NOTE: Mr Freedman says he went to the
Times office on Mon. Feb 23 (the paper came out on Sunday,
Feb 22). Pretty fast footwork, no?
WHAT ELSE DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS AFFAIR?
Morris Kominsky, author of “Hoaxers” (Branden Press,
1970) [NOTE: this is BEFORE Butz’s publication date of
1976], wrote a letter to Mr. Balwin and recieved the
following reply:
“Dear Mr. Kominsky,
“Thank you for your letter of inquiry of January 6.
“The world Jewish population figures printed in this
story came from the 1948 edition of the World Almanac.
Later we checked it with the American Jewish Committee and
other sources and said in the correction, as I noted to you
in my previous letter, that the authorities agree that
Hitler’s wholesale massacre of Jews during the war reduced
the Jewish population to perhaps 12 million today
(2/26/48).
“If Mr. Freedman met with me I do not remember it.
The problem is of course, that you are talking about events
that took place 19 years ago. I see hundreds of people per
year, many of them only for a few minutes so I could not
swear that I did not see Mr. Freedman but if I did it made
no impression either upon me or upon my assistant.
“I do not know what Mr. Freedman means by examination
of documents but to my knowledge we had no particular
documents bearing on the issue in question.
“I hope this answers your questions; if there is
anything else you wish to know please do not hesitate to
write again.
“Sincerely, Hanson W. Baldwin (Military Editor)”
IN SUMMATION:
There was no “secret census”, no “file containing the
results of the searching investigations conducted by the NY
Times through its own offices throughout the world and with
the collaboration of governments and religious bodies in
those foreign countries”. Just a beleagered ex-military
man appointed editor who looked up some numbers in an
almanac. Mr. Freedman, in his eagerness to prove a point,
unwittingly caused a chain reaction of errors that were
perpetuated by people who didn’t bother to check the facts.
A lot of times, when I’m verifying claims made by
revisionists and racists, I find errors, quotes out of
context and selective presentation of data. It’s hard to
take the revisionist postion seriously when it’s this easy
to debunk the basic tenents
From prodigy.com!GMHV19A Sat Apr 13 12:49:23 1996
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