Archive/File: people/h/hayward.joel/press/Christchurch_Press.000629
Last-Modified: 2000/07/18
Copyright 2000 The Christchurch Press Company Limited
The Press (Christchurch, New Zealand), June 29, 2000, p. 3
“Hayward Rejects Revisionist’s Claims,” by Tara Ross
Joel Hayward is distancing himself from a Holocaust
revisionist visiting Christchurch to defend his thesis.
Frederick Toben, director of a revisionist group in Australia,
the Adelaide Institute, visited the University of Canterbury
yesterday to defend Dr Hayward’s thesis, which denied aspects of
the Holocaust.
Mr Toben told The Press that he was anxious to defend Dr
Hayward’s freedom of speech, and the worthiness of his thesis.
He said Dr Hayward’s attempts to correct his thesis and withdraw
his main conclusion had been a disappointment to the
international community of Holocaust revisionists.
“He’s going to lose friends,” Mr Toben said. “He has to give us
the reasons for his recantation.”
Dr Hayward had no knowledge of the Christchurch visit, and was at
pains to distance himself from Mr Toben.
“I’m not affiliated with Dr Toben or with his centre. I think his
institution has an excessively negative emphasis on all things
Jewish that I find unpalatable,” he said.
“I stand strongly opposed to anti-Semitism and I have nothing to
do with any organisation, including Dr Toben’s, that would
promote disharmony among racial or ethnic groups.”
Dr Hayward described as “nonsense” Mr Toben’s claims that he was
at the forefront of Holocaust revisionism.
“I don’t believe that at all. My research has been barely
mentioned by revisionists in the decade since I wrote it. At the moment
I think I’m persona non grata among those people. They think I
changed my view because of some Jewish conspiracy.”
Dr Hayward said he had changed his view because of new evidence,
personal visits to camps, and discussions with survivors
that had shown him his original evidence was insufficient.
“I have no interest in what bigots think about me or what I wrote
10 years ago.”
John Ballard, professor of the defence and strategic studies
department at Massey University where Dr Hayward is now a
senior lecturer, said Mr Toben was an extremist whose visit could
only damage Dr Hayward.
“It’s a very large concern that he’s here, because although Joel
does not share his views, there’s a guilt by association that can
occur because of Toben’s attempted relationship with him.”
An independent working party at Canterbury University has been
set up in response to criticism of Dr Hayward’s thesis, which
alleges there were no gas chambers, that far fewer than six
million Jews were killed, and there were no plans for mass murder.
