Debating the Holocaust

'Debating the Holocaust' IS A NEW LOOK AT BOTH SIDES. NOW, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE HOLOCAUST DENIAL DEBATE

This is a book about the Holocaust, and about two competing views of that event. On the one hand we have the traditional, orthodox view: the six million Jewish casualties, the gas chambers, the cremation ovens and mass graves. Traditional historians have thousands of surviving witnesses and the weight of history on their side. On the other hand there is a small, renegade band of writers and researchers who refuse to accept large parts of this story. These revisionists, as they call themselves, present counter-evidence and ask tough questions. They are beginning to outline a new and different narrative.

Thus there has emerged something of a debate -- a debate of historic significance. This is no peripheral clash between two arcane schools of thought, regarding some obscure details of World War II. It is about history, of course, but it also speaks to fundamental issues of our time: freedom of speech and press, the operation of mass media, manipulation of public opinion, political and economic power structures, and the coercive abilities of the State. It is an astonishingly rancorous and controversial debate, with far-reaching implications.

There was no budget.
There was no plan.
There was no extermination order from Hitler.

Preeminent Holocaust expert Raul Hilberg said: "What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. [These measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus -- mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy."

Is this really a comprehensible explanation?

Key camps have all but vanished. So too the human remains. Material evidence is astonishingly absent. The alleged gassing procedure has serious, unanswered questions. And the famous "six million" number has an amazing history.
Revisionists claim that the public has been seriously misled by traditional historians. Are they right?

IF WE COULD BE MISTAKEN ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST, WHAT ELSE COULD WE BE WRONG ABOUT?

BOOK CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I – SITUATING THE HOLOCAUST DEBATE

Chapter 1: The Great Debate

• The Core of Revisionism
• Four Myths
• Who’s Who in the Debate

Chapter 2: Truth versus Lies

• The Traditional Story
• A Question of Evidence
• The Nuremberg Trials

Chapter 3: On the Origin, and Future, of the “Six Million”

• The Prescient Times
• Revisionist Death Figures
• World Jewish Population

Chapter 4: Breaking It Down: The Death Matrix

• The Hilberg Matrix
• Life (and Death) in the Ghettos

PART II – DEATH CAMPS IN FOCUS

Chapter 5: Chelmno and the Nazi Camp System

• The Alleged Onset of Mass Murder—and the Missing Hitler Order
• Gas Chambers Galore
• Death Camp Chelmno
• Disposing of the Bodies
• Traditionalist Replies

Chapter 6: The Reinhardt Camps (I): Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka

• Estimated Fatalities
• The Death Matrices
• Electrocution, Steam, Diesels, Chlorine…

Chapter 7: Reinhardt (II): The Diesel Story

• Gerstein, Reder, and the Diesel Exhaust
• Traditionalist Replies

Chapter 8: Reinhardt (III): The Vanishing Bodies

• Excavations (Part I)—Belzec: The Polish Excavations of 1997–1999
• Excavations (Part II)—Treblinka: Soviet-Polish Diggings of 1944 and 1945
• Excavations (Part III)—Sobibor: 2001–2008
• Burying the Bodies
• Exhuming and Burning
• Traditionalist Replies
• Revisionist Death Estimates
• The End of the Line

Chapter 9: Majdanek

• The Death Matrix
• The Seven Chambers of Majdanek

Chapter 10: Auschwitz

• The Essentials of the Auschwitz Story—The Main Camp
• Birkenau—Alleged Extermination Camp
• Estimated Fatalities
• The Death Matrix
• Death Matrix (Part I): The Gas Chambers
• The Mechanics of Gassing
• No Holes?
• The Leuchter Report
• Death Matrix (Part II): Body Disposal
• Ovens and Capacity
• The Hungarian Operation
• Air Photo Evidence
• A Revisionist Auschwitz

PART III – THE FUTURE OF THE DEBATE

Chapter 11: “Storytellers Supreme”

• The Problem of the Witnesses
• Moving Ahead: A Revisionist Holocaust

Chapter 12: Hoax? Fraud? Conspiracy?

• A “Jewish Conspiracy”?
• Covering All the Bases
• Exploiting the Holocaust

Epilogue

Appendix A: Calculation Assumptions

Appendix B: Major Death Camp Witnesses—Pro and Con

Bibliography

General Index

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