I have recently had the pleasure of discussing matters of historical
revisionism with David Cole. David has also gratiously responded to a
series of questions which I put forth
to him with the specific purpose of being posted in this forum. His
answers are at once, funny, angry, serious,and insightful, but above all,
honest. He is critical of revisionists and exterminationists alike. One
may disagree with David, but no one can claim that he is insincere. David
has appeared on numerous television shows and is best know for his video,
“David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper.” And now…without further
ado…David Cole…
INTERVIEW: DAVID COLE
Q: How did you first become interested in Holocaust Revisionism?
COLE: I was introduced to revisionism via a number of sources, ranging
>from the late David McCalden (who was the first revisionist I ever met) to
a friend of mine whose father worked for the ADL. By 1988 I was
interested not so much by revisionist literature, which I deemed to be
fairly weak in places, but instead by the almost total lack of reliable
sources (or in many cases the lack of ANY sources) for the gas chamber /
genocide concept. After reading the major mainstream Holocaust books, I
became aware that the evidence for the gas chamber / genocide concept was
extremely weak…which doesn’t mean that I dismissed the story entirely –
I just became aware that the evidence was weak. What bothered me was that
the mainstream authors didn’t seem to mind making unsourced claims…nor
did they seem to mind that their various versions of events often
conflicted. There didn’t actually seem to be one “version.” Each book
made different claims about the “genocide plan” and the “gas chambers.” I
thought that AT BEST this was sloppy historiography…after all, I had
been told since grade school that everything about the Holocaust had long
ago been ascertained beyond question.
So I thought I’d look into this issue myself. In a way, you can say that
I was affected more by the books of the NON-revisionists. This whole
subject just SCREAMED out for more research. So I looked at my
cobweb-covered social calendar and figured “Hell, I got about ten or
twenty years to blow on research.”
Q: What, in your opinion, was the fate of Europe’s Jews during the
Second World War?
COLE: Ah, now isn’t that the question of the hour! You know, after
about nine years of research, I think I finally know the answer to that
question. If I ever publish again (and I mean a book; I’ve never enjoyed
doing videos) I’ll answer that in depth. If any of you Internetters out
there are interested in the question of the fate of Europe’s Jews, just
take your time and pay attention to the evidence and, if you allow your
mind to stay clear, you’ll get to the truth – or, as I’m fond of saying,
the truth AS BEST AS WE CAN KNOW IT.
Q: For those who have not seen it, what would you say is the
importance of your film, “David Cole interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper” ?
COLE: My video “David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper” was
important only in that it has yielded results. Finally, last year, the
Auschwitz State Museum (ASM) began telling people the truth about Krema
1. Tourists are no longer told that they are stepping inside a “genuine”
gas chamber. Now they are told that the interior was remodeled after the
war to LOOK LIKE the kind of gas chamber that is believed by the ASM to
have once been extant at the Auschwitz Main Camp (Pressac believes that
there was a gas chamber at the Main Camp, but his description of it
differs from the ASM’s, so it need to be pointed out that the Krema 1
which is presently on display is specifically the ASM’s version of the
Auschwitz Main Camp gas chamber). As far as the Internet goes, I think it
should be pointed out that when my “Dr. Piper” video was first released,
it was held up to constant (and very immature) ridicule on the ‘net.
“Cole’s lying,” it was said. “Cole’s edited Dr. Piper’s comments to
misrepresent what he’s saying.” I was called a liar and a fraud. Now
that the ASM has changed its spiel to say openly exactly what Dr. Piper
told me, and what I reported in my video, the ‘net has grown oddly silent!
No apologies from anyone, of course! (Not that I’m asking for any).
There was one freak on the ‘net who told me I should “suck demon cocks in
Hell for all eternity” because of my Piper video. Where’s this guy now?
What does he have to say now?
You see, AT FIRST the line was “Cole’s lying about Krema 1 being
‘remodeled’ after the war.” But now that this has been officially
admitted the line has changed to “sure it’s been remodeled, but so what?”
This is a standard anti-revisionist tactic. When a revisionist points
ANYTHING out, the first response is simply to DENY what he’s saying.
“He’s lying.” It doesn’t matter if it’s REALLY known whether he’s lying
or not. It’s just STRATEGICALLY the best way to deal with revisionists.
Just accuse them of lying. THEN, if the thing that the revisionist was
pointing out becomes adopted as part of the standard Holocaust line, the
tactic CHANGES (out of necessity) to “sure the revisionist is right about
this ONE LITTLE TINY POINT – but it makes no difference – he’s still wrong
about everything else!”
This was the tactic with the Auschwitz swimming pool. The first responses
were “there is no pool.” Then, when it became clear that there WAS one,
it became “sure there is, but so what? It’s an irrelevant point.” The
same pattern occured with the delousing chambers. First it was denied
that Zyklon was actually used for delousing in the cmaps. Revisionists
were actually RIDICULED for saying so. Then, after Pressac, it became
“okay, sure, there were delousing chambers – but so what?” We see the
same pattern with the human soap, the Dachau “gas chamber,” the reduction
of the Auschwitz death toll (something that revisionists were talking
about while Yehuda Bauer was still going through puberty), and many other
things. The rule of thumb for those who “battle” revisionists : DENY
first. Throw around the word “liar” like a football. Then sit back and
hope that everyone believes you and the revisionist goes away or is put in
jail or beaten up. But if the worst happens, and the revisionist is
proven right, just pretend that you ALWAYS knew the truth of what he’s
been saying, and make sure that everyone understands that the revisionist
is STILL a liar about “everything else”!
All I’m saying is this; it very well might be that the remodeling of Krema
1, the Auschwitz swimming pool, the human soap story, the reduced
Auschwitz death toll, the fake Dachau “gas chamber,” etc. etc. ARE INDEED
irrelevant to the debate over the existence of homicidal gas chambers, or
the existence of a genocide plan. But you only do yourself a disservice
by AUTOMATICALLY DENYING the truthfulness of everything that proceeds from
the mouths of revisionists. You should skip the first phase, the “liar”
phase, and go directly to the second one, the “it doesn’t matter” phase.
Several months ago the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s magazine “Response”
published an article calling me a liar for saying that there was a
swimming pool at the Auschwitz Main Camp. This is exactly the kind of
counterproductive strategy that “exterminationists” can’t seem to get
beyond. We all know that there was a swimming pool. We also understnad
that the presence of this pool IN NO WAY negates the possibility of
gassings at Auschwitz. It’s totally irrelevant! But there’s no reason to
LIE about anything. Just be truthful. Don’t scream “LIAR – THERE WAS NO
POOL.” Just rationally explain “yes, there’s a pool, but at best it was
for the few favored Main Camp inmates – one of many perks available to
preferred inmates – but it is in no way representative of the experience
of rank and file inmates – especially Birkenau inmates.”
There, now, doesn’t that feel better!? No need to lie. Don’t
underestimate the capacity of your audience to take in seemingly
contradictory pieces of evidence. If you can explain something clearly
enough, they’ll understand. I was never lying about Krema 1. Period. My
interview with Piper has ALWAYS been available in its rough, unedited
version – just to show that there were no “creative” edits. But that
never really mattered to most of you, now did it?
Q: What do you consider to be the most compelling support for the
revisionist view of the “Holocaust” story?
COLE: The most “compelling” evidence for the revisionist version is
the LACK of hard evidence presented by the “exterminationist” side, and
the questionable nature of most of the physical evidence. Now, just
because the “exterminationists” don’t provide much hard evidence doesn’t
necessarily mean that there IS no hard evidence…the gas chamber and
genocide stories might indeed be true IN SPITE of the smugness and
laziness of the “exterminationists.” Just because most of these people
are so sure of their own theory that they feel no need to really go out
and PROVE anything DOESN’T MEAN that they wouldn’t find any evidence if
they ever just get up off their fat asses and look. I’ve come to really
respect Chris Browning. His “Fateful Months” and “Path to Genocide” are
real attempts to look for evidence – and he’s not afraid to talk about the
many flaws and contradictions in the varous “exterminationist” schools of
thought about the “genocide” plan. I think this is why so many others
refuse to break a sweat looking for evidence; they’re afraid of having to
say “we don’t know that yet.” They have this scenario in their minds that
as soon as they acknowledge the gaps that still exist in Holocaust
history, within 24 hours Ernst Zundel will become dictator of the world!
This sounds ridiculous but it’s true. A lot of these guys have scared
themselves silly over the likes of Zundel. In a way, they let Zundel
write their Holocaust books because it’s their fear of Zundel that
determines what they say and what they don’t. Guys like Browning and Arno
Mayer have more of a respect for their audience. They understand that
most people can handle knowing about still unanswered Holocaust questions
without getting the urge to put on jackboots and brown shirts. Raul
Hilberg was candid, VERY candid, about what he didn’t know during his
stint as a witness in the first Zundel Trial. I only wish he was as
candid in his books!
Q: Have you encountered any anti-semitism from the revisionists that
you have met around the world?
COLE: Have I encountered anti-Semitism from revisionists? That’s a
tricky one, because most of them are always on their best behavior when
I’m around. The ones, and there are many, who believe in wacky Jewish
conspiracy theories or the supremacy of the “white race” rarely let me in
on the joke because they know that I won’t share those views. I always
volunteer my views on such subjects as religion, race-mixing, conspiracy
theories, etc., just so there should be no confusion about where I stand
on those things. Plus my best friend, who is black, is REALLY imposing –
this is a BIG guy who, by his sheer size, doesn’t exactly encourage candor
>from white supremacists who might be in the same room. Anytime he’s
around, my revisionist pals are either silent or trying to say something
complimentary about black people (like “I really love that Marcus Garvey”
or “you people are such great Christians”). One time I was having dinner
with Mark Weber and his girlfriend. As we were coming out of the
restaurant, a trendy, expensive West L.A. eatery, Weber was talking
animatedly about some very “conservative” subjects. And who should come
walking up behind us, listening in, but the rapper Ice T, who, as many of
you would know, is as far left as Mark is far right. I managed to change
the subject before the situation could become dangerous. Still and all,
nowadays I wonder if I did the right thing. It’s not that I wish Mark any
harm, it’s just that, well, the image of a revisionist historian getting
clobbered by a famous rapper…well, as Beavis and/or Butt-head might say,
“that would be cool.”
Q: What difficulties has your position on the “Holocaust” resulted in
for you?
COLE: My position has resulted in a plethora of “difficulties,” but
the majority of them I now realize were due to my own thoughtlessness,
impatience, pig-headedness, and my mishandling of several things that, if
handled better, would have resulted in life being a bit easier for me. So
I’m not going to bitch about my “problems” because so many of them are
squarely of my own making. I’m not a “victim,” with the exceptiions being
the times I’ve been beaten up (there’s no reason to do this to ANYONE, no
matter how much you disagree with their positions) and the times the media
has GROSSLY misrepresented my views. And by that I don’t mean “negative
press.” I mean the times they have manufactured quotes from me in order
to distort and falsify my positions. Like when “60 Minutes” re-edited my
appearance on the “Montel Williams Show” by taking the scene when I’m
introduced at the beginning of the show – and I nod “yes” when Montel says
I’m Jewish, and placing that affirmative nod after a point later in the
show when Montel asks if the Holocaust is a “myth.” So, the millions of
viewers who watch “60 Minutes,” saw Montel ask “Is it a myth?” – and then
they saw me nod in the affirmative. The deceit is only obvious to the few
who have seen the actual video of the “Montel Williams” episode. How can
this kind of media behavior be excused? I’ve NEVER said that the
Holocaust is a “myth” or “hoax” or “lie.” Yet to all of my family and
friends across the country (and to the MILLIONS of other people) who saw
“60 Minutes,” this was the unmistakable impression. And of course we all
know that the great Mike Wallace wouldn’t lie, right? “60 Minutes” caused
me a GREAT deal of pain and grief, and I think that this ranks with one of
those things that is NOT in any way my fault, because I’m more than
willing to defend (and defend PUBLICLY) any of my beliefs. But I’m not
responsible for the gross and malicious behavior of some reporters and
producers who, frustrated with the fact that I don’t say what they would
LIKE me to say, bypass all boundaries of ethical behavior to “make” me say
the words they want to hear.
Q: What is the nature of your disagreement with Robert Faurrison?
COLE: My dispute with Robert Faurisson was outlined in my article in
Bradley Smith’s newsletter “Smith’s Report” #21, as well as in my 16 page
response to Faurisson and Henri Roques, which has been excerpted in
“Smith’s Report” and distributed widely by Bradley. If you want the
details, you can post those items. The bottom line, for those who don’t
want the gory details, is that Faurisson thinks I’m an agent for the
“Jewish conspiracy,” and that I’ve been sent to infiltrate and destroy his
precious revisionist “movement.” And I think that Faurisson is a complete
fraud and liar masquerading as a historian…aman who’s spent years
misleading people and misrepresenting crucial evidence in order to support
his otherwise insupportable positions. We each have our “cheering
sections.” Faurisson has the support of all the other revisionists,
racists, and right-wingers who have long believed that I’m a
“conspirator,” and, as I’ve been finding out since my dispute with
Faurisson went public, I have the support of many honest researchers on
both sides of this issue who have tried to take Faurisson up on his empty
request for “open debate,” only to find out that Faurisson rarely if ever
makes himself available to defend ANY of his fraudulent positions, most of
which fall to shreds at the first hint of a critical question.
The response of the revisionist “community” to this dispute has persuaded
me to sever my ties with those few revisionists I ever had “ties” with.
The response from Faurisson, Bradley Smith, Mark Weber, and Dr. Robert
Countess (among others) has been the same. “How can you be so hard on
Faurisson,” they ask, “he’s suffered so badly at the hands of the French
government. Have some compassion!” This response really burns me up, not
only because it bypasses any discussion of the truth of my specific
complaints about Faurisson’s work, but even more because it comes from
people who have NEVER given an OUNCE of compassion to concentration camp
survivors, even though these people have suffered far more than Faurisson
EVER has. To me, nothing is worse than a hypocrite. Time and again these
revisionists have derided and mocked camp survivors, bragging that they
won’t soften their tone because of the suffering of these people. Bradley
Smith, who called Mel Mermelstein a “fraud,” “vainglorious prevaricator,”
and “false tale-spinner,” and Elie Wiesel a man “not wrapped too tight,”
has lost the moral right to ask me to soften my tone on Faurisson because
“the poor man’s been through so much.” Faurisson has been telling
revisionists that I’m some kind of villain for being so “hard” on such an
“oppressed” man as he. But Faurisson, who took immense pleasure in
hounding Otto Frank until his dying day, and who was NEVER swayed by the
fact that Frank lost his entire family because of the Nazis, has NO RIGHT
to now ask for an immunity from criticism that he has always denied
others. Faurisson is suffering? Perhaps. But he has it a thousand times
better than a Jew living under Nazism. I refuse to have a double
standard. People may not like me, but I never want it said that I’m not
fair. I’ve criticized the testimony of survivors and mainstream Holocaust
scholars, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to be just as hard if not
harder on a fraud like Faurisson. As I told Bradley in a recent letter,
my association with the revisionist “movement” was always conditional; I
share very little or nothing in common with any of these people except for
a desire to probe the unanswered questions regarding the Holocaust. The
minute I felt I could no longer trust the revisionists to be genuinely
interested in getting to the truth of the gas chamber / genocide story was
the minute I was out the door. As far as I’m concerned now, I’m no more
in their “camp” than the “exterminationist” one. This may sound foolish
to the smug anti-revisionists of the ‘net, who are probably bursting with
sarcastic laughter that I would have EVER really thought that the
revisionists had integrity. But back in the real world, it must be
understood that both Mark Weber and David Irving are highly competent
World War Two historians – and this is something that even a master libel
artist like Michael Shermer (of the “Skeptic” and the “Donahue Show”) was
forced to admit (I’ll explain the “libel artist” comment: Shermer wrote in
his “Skeptic” article that he had evidence “from within my own ranks” that
I’m a “racist with a political agenda.” However, in two subsequent
tape-recorded phone calls, one with me and one with a fellow “skeptic,”
Shermer admitted that this claim was patently false. He even told his
“skeptic” supporter that the “racist” claim against me was “the most
misleading thing” in his article. This fellow “skeptic” was outraged
enough to turn a copy of this conversation over to me. Despite my pleas
to Shermer to print a retraction, it’s been a year so far and no
retraction. Shermer is not concerned at all about correcting “the most
misleading thing” he wrote in his article. Some “skeptic”) Back to Weber
and Irving. I’m not at all close to Irving, so I really can’t comment on
him. But I CAN say that Mark Weber’s greatest flaw is that he seems to
concern himself more with the “movement” than with the integrity of his
own work. He might have had a real shot at legitimacy as a historian, but
he’s blown it by sacrificing his integrity for “movement” concerns. For
example, IHR sells the “Protocols of Zion.” Weber freely acknowledges
(privately) that this book is a ridiculous fraud. But he also admits that
it’s one of the consistently best selling books they have. Weber would
like to drop it, but he’s afraid of losing support.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
Right now I’m working on a fairly lengthy and time-consuming project.
Mainly I’m still in the research phase. I prefer that part. I love doing
research. I’m not so big on the “publicity” part. I think that’s a major
misconception among people who follow the revisionist debate. I’ve been a
part of most of the major media “adventures” (like “Montel Williams,”
“Phil Donahue,” “60 Minutes” “The New Yorker,” etc.) and I think some
people probably get the idea that I like doing that kind of stuff. But
these people get a skewed perspective of my life. At best they see maybe
two or three hours out of my entire year. They don’t have a clue about
what I do with my roughly 16 or so waking hours each day. I’m really only
in my element when I’m researching something. I hate doing the talk
shows. Since I declined to appear on “60 Minutes” I’ve gone cold turkey.
No more media for a long time. The worst part of the talk shows is,
you’re sitting in your dressing room or the green room, waiting to go on,
and you’re going over in your mind just WHAT you plan to say for the few
uninterrupted minutes of talk time you’ll be afforded on the show. So
you’re going over your “best” material. It’s like a comedian, about to go
on the “Tonight Show” for the first time, going over his “best” seven
minutes! But history isn’t like that. You can’t refine and edit the
entire Holocaust into seven minutes! History is all about specifics,
details, and digression. It’s an insult to the subject to demand a
“brief” digest. Claude Lanzmann had the right idea; the longer the
better!
But mabe my appearances on the talk shows have yielded some positive
results. After all, didn’t the “Montel Williams” episode I did with Mark
Weber end up reuniting two long lost brothers, who each thought the other
had been gassed at Auschwitz? And I think that my film clips from
Majdanek (which I showed on “Donahue”) might also have some positive
effects; I’ve been told by a “little bird” (a usually reliable little
bird) that there’s a chance that the Majdanek Museum might soon jettison
one or all of their “homicidal” gas chambers. Last year, when I met with
Majdanek Museum Curator Tomasz Kranz, he seemed ready to do that with
their largest “homicidal” (actually delousing) gas chamber. I’m not a
betting man, but I’d wager that, more than any concerns about historical
accuracy, the major concern of the Majdanek Museum is that without “gas
chambers” to view, no one would have any reason to travel to Lublin!
I wonder what the response will be on the ‘net if the Majdanek gas
chambers, which have been like a “pet project” of mine for the past three
years, are officially revised? I mean, right now everyone calls me a
liar…
From [email protected] Sat Jun 17 05:06:23 PDT 1995
Article: 22250 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (DonVH)
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Subject: INTERVIEW: DAVID COLE
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