Chris Webb has a ridiculous piece up on his site, "Holocaust Remembrance. A time to memorialize, debate, debunk or debauch?" ( http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/essays&editorials/memorial-debunk-debate-debauged.html ) by a certain "Dr. Martin Friedhaus". Google search has nothing on this alleged "Dr.". Whether he is real, or a creation of Chris Webb or his flunkies, the article is a hoot. It is painfully obvious that it is aimed at us.
Some quotes:
However we've also witnessed the evolution of the revisionist counter movement or "Holocaust Revisionist Debunkers" and if you think the Holocaust Deniers seemed kooky or paranoid in their methods, then the "Debunkers" can be simply downright psychotic in the way they approach the debate.
[...]
It is believed that some of these Holocaust Controversy type blogs are in fact supported by Neo-Nazi organizations with the sole purpose of subterfuge, false propaganda and personal attacks.
[...]
Are the "Debunkers" any different than the "Deniers" because they appear to take the moral high ground?
"Friedhaus" also cites Webb's article "Holocaust Denial & Debunking" ( http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/essays&editorials/deniers&debunkers.html ), which contains assertions such as:
In addition, those self proclaimed “Debunkers” of revisionist theories are in many ways no different than the Deniers themselves. Most are only seeking a conflict or debate to engage in, and debunking revisionism affords them some sort of “moral high ground” to do it from.So the alleged "Dr. Friedhaus" and Chris Webb trash the work of such debunkers as Deborah Lipstadt, Michael Shermer, Robert Jan van Pelt, the Holocaust History Project team and many, many other noble people - all in order to smear us.
[...]
And no matter what – the Deniers views are unlikely to change and does the world doesn’t really need “Noble-Debunkers” to keep the rest of us safe from such idiotic theories or treatises.
[...]
"What is Holocaust Denial & Debunking Good for?”
“Absolutely nothing!”
The problem is that both Webb and his flunkie (or alter ego) "Friedhaus" have neither moral nor intellectual standing to pass such judgments.
Sure, Webb's cheap psychologizing is funny in light of him allowing "Friedhaus" to call him a "Renowned Holocaust Scholar Chris Webb" in the article. This shows only that Webb has a huge ego, but ask any Holocaust historian, and (s)he will not know anything about any "renown Holocaust scholar Chris Webb".
Let's not forget who Chris Webb is. He is the guy who was dumb enough to introduce to the Action Reinhard Camps site team several forged documents. The documents were forged by "Andy Schmidt", Webb's shadowy pal and co-author (go to the Wiener Library online catalog and type in "Webb" as the author).
After the forgeries had been exposed, Webb, using his position as the registrar of the deathcamps.org domain name, seized the control over the ARC site and single-handedly purged everyone opposed to his methods, which included most of the original ARC team, including two ARC founders. Since then he has been falsely claiming that the copyright on the ARC materials belongs to him. How so? Well, apparently because he owns the domain name.
At ARC/H.E.A.R.T. sites/blogs you will see notices claiming that the copyright information can be verified through WHOIS service. The problem is that it is another blatant lie: WHOIS service only shows the owner of the domain name. It cannot, in principle, be used to establish the copyright-owner of the materials on any site.
Not being content with the Stalinist purge of the opposition, Webb, with the help of his faithful thug Carmelo Lisciotto, began to falsify the materials on the deathcamps.org site. Just one small example will suffice. While an ARC member, I authored a page about Babiy Yar Sonderkommandos, using mostly Russian-language sources and several English-language publications. Here's the archived version, where I am listed as a source. And if you go to to the current version at http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/bywitnesses.html you will see Chris Webb as a source instead of me.
There are dozens of such "small" falsifications all over the deathcamps.org, including the history page, in which now only Chris Webb is mentioned by name as the website creator (the actual webdesign work was always done by the ARC founder Michael Peters; Webb was merely a secretary and one of the contributors). And this behavior again can only be described as Stalinist. First purge the opposition, then falsify history and destroy memory. I will not be surprised if after reading this, Webb will tell Lisciotto to further modify the record here and there.
Many ARC members became victims of such an approach. John Ulrich Poulsen had a very informative page about the slogans like "Arbeit macht frei" on the gates of concentration camps. It was a very popular part of the site, getting most of the hits. After Poulsen demanded for it to be removed (after months of trying to ask nicely), the following notice appeared instead of the site ( http://www.deathcamps.org/websites/JUPremoved.html ):
John Ulrich Poulsen "Photos of Gates and Mottos Pages" deemed inappropriate and removed from the Genuine Action Reinhard Camps website.In fact, ARC never ever got a "high volume" of any e-mails, much less the ones complaining about Poulsen's popular site. But Webb and Lisciotto have a very poor fantasy, so when they removed Michael Peters' artwork from the site, they gave the same false reason for the removal ( http://deathcamps.org/websites/removed.html ):
Due to a high volume of emails we've received stating the John Ulrich Poulsen Concentration Gates & Mottos pages offer no value to the viewer other than to symbolize and to glorify the Nazi Concentration camp system, the ARC Trustees have revisited the Independent websites and determined that the John Ulrich Poulsen pages in fact maintain no relevant connection to the events of Action Reinhard. Furthermore, the ARC Trustees’ concede that views expressed by visitors regarding these pages can be understandably & reasonably construed. Henceforth, in keeping with the spirit of memorializing the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, any promotion of such views are deemed inappropriate.
The John Ulrich Poulsen pages have been removed from the genuine ARC website.
We would also like to take this time to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by the John Ulrich Poulsen pages. -ARC
Michael Peters Holocaust Artwork Removed due to complaints regarding content and qualityWhen Konrad Wawryn, author of several graphic reconstructions, demanded that his work be removed from the site, Webb removed Wawryn's work. Instead, he added this note:
Due to the overwhelming volume of complaints we've received regarding the Michael Peters Holocaust Art pages as "being in poor taste". The ARC trustees have agreed to comply with the wishes of our supporters, and those that refer to the genuine ARC website www.deathcamps.org as a high quality digital reference and resource on the Aktion Reinhard Camps.
We would also like to take this time to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by the Michael Peters art.
-ARC
Visual Dramatization removed for inaccuracies.This visual work had been accepted as accurate by Webb just several months earlier.
After raping the deathcamps.org site, Chris Webb and Carmelo Lisciotto went on to create their own hilariously inaccurate and sloppy holocaustresearchproject.org. Unfortunately for them, they've been banned even by Wikipedia after Carmelo spammed the links to their "resource" all over wiki.
"Friedhaus" has also something to say about our alleged profanity:
In my own experience most of the "Debunking" tends to occur on conspiracy websites or "cheesy blogs" which specifically attempt to design there look and feel with an intent to perpetrate an air of credibility, and scholarship. They do this by associating themselves with respected Internet sites via web-links or reference quotes, despite the fact they often intersperse these links among paragraphs of profanity, name calling, threats and disparaging comments.The problem is, the H.E.A.R.T. webmaster and thug Carmelo Lisciotto is one of the most profane people I've ever known. I will not repeat the messages he left at the blog and sent by e-mail, as they're truly vile. I will simply link here and here. Judging by his language, Lisciotto is also a big homophobe. I think such potty-mouthed bigots should stay away from the topic of the Nazi mass murder for obvious reasons.
"Friedhaus", if he is a real person (which I doubt) is knowingly associating himself with Webb and Lisciotto and thus has no standing whatsoever to criticize anyone.
How these people, who have no honor and no shame, can be moralizing about anything? How can the person who does not care about the truth, the copyright-thief, forgery-enabler and friend of vile bigots be trusted with educating the public about the Holocaust? It's a travesty.
6 comments:
It is difficult to know why someone should choose to go down the Denier path, perhaps as a result of anti-Semitism, or seeking their fifteen minutes of fame through controversial outbursts, whilst ignoring the overwhelming evidence for the Holocaust, even just as a mechanism for spreading hate and intolerance- who can be sure.
With recent well publicised comments from Bishop Dr Richard Williamson, who in a Swedish television interview in January 2009 said:
Bishop Richard Williamson
“There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies,”
In light of such a public outburst, perhaps my stance needs to change. I will note that the Bishop also made went on to say:
"Killed in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers.”
Resulting from the furore that inevitably followed such comments, the Bishop sent a letter of apology to the Vatican. In the letter he expressed regret by stating:
“Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks. If I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.
To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise, as the Holy Father has said, every act of unjust violence against one man hurts all mankind.”
In writing this short editorial essay for H.E.A.R.T, I suppose my stance has de-facto changed slightly, when respected pillars of society indulge in Holocaust Denial, then there should be outrage, and such views should be challenged, for it is an insult to all those Jews as well as countless numbers of other innocent victims, who perished in the course of the Nazi genocide of hatred.
So in conclusion...
"What is Holocaust Denial & Debunking Good for?”
“Absolutely nothing!”
- Chris Webb
I'm copying the text of these ridiculous articles here in the comments in case Webb/Lisciotto decide to delete or modify them.
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/essays&editorials/deniers&debunkers.html
st Denial & Debunking
“What is it good for?” - “Absolutely Nothing!”
In nearly 40 years of holocaust research, I have never given more than a few seconds thought regarding Holocaust Denial.
"But is that wise?"
Up to now I thought so, what would be the point, of spending any substantial amount of precious time on debating with Holocaust Deniers, given the abundance of evidence available, ranging from films, photographs, eyewitness testimony, documents and admissions from those who took part in one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.
Thanks to the internet, the Deniers have had priceless opportunities to speedily put forward their views, and this in turn has led to a number of websites, countering their views, and thus a cottage industry of sorts has grown up.
Visiting some of these sites one is struck by the enormous amount of wasted effort, both in terms of arguing with Deniers, who will never change their particular view, unless some “ultimate proof” is provided, and the Deniers spending their time, peddling their seemingly senseless viewpoints, happy to be engaged in ‘debate.’
In addition, those self proclaimed “Debunkers” of revisionist theories are in many ways no different than the Deniers themselves. Most are only seeking a conflict or debate to engage in, and debunking revisionism affords them some sort of “moral high ground” to do it from.
Clearly, a view could be formed that the “ultimate proof” has already been provided, but the Deniers choose not to believe it. And no matter what – the Deniers views are unlikely to change and does the world doesn’t really need “Noble-Debunkers” to keep the rest of us safe from such idiotic theories or treatises.
So in essence, debating the number of victims at Belzec and Sobibor death camps at length, the type of engine used at Treblinka to gas hundreds and thousands of innocent Jewish men, women and children, the true nature of deportations East - was it six million murdered or 8 million, what does all this effort achieve?
It is believed that some of these Holocaust Controversy type blogs are in fact supported by Neo-Nazi organizations with the sole purpose of subterfuge, false propaganda and personal attacks.
Often we find when one is exposed to the level of vitriol spewed by "Deniers" they are shocked to see the equivalent or worse form of diatribes disgorged by the "Debunkers" on the controversy blogs, hate forums, email bulletins, and YouTube videos.
On the topic of Holocaust Denial, Debunking or Debate, members of The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team made the following comment:
Whilst many “Self-Proclaimed Debunkers of Revisionism” believe they are doing something noble by “giving the Deniers a hard time” you are in essence accomplishing nothing but validating that a ludicrous revisionist viewpoint has any merit what so ever.
Forcing Holocaust Deniers to lose composure doesn't discredit the Denier. It simply proves the Denier is just as human as the rest of us and can react adversely when challenged.
(We would remind all that the Holocaust isn't a game where points are awarded to whichever side makes a better argument. Millions died in unimaginable suffering. If you need to play a game that proves your intellect we would recommend a friendly game of Chess perhaps?)
It is the view of the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team that the period of history known as the Holocaust [Shoah], the program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and its collaborators towards the Jewish peoples in Europe but also including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, gay men, and political and religious opponents can NEVER BE DENIED.
Any claim that the Shoah never happened, that the resources of the Third Reich never murdered almost a million Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. That entire communities of Jews and Romani were not crammed into ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers is a claim designed purely to stir controversy.
Validating the arguments of Holocaust Deniers via anonymous online debates offers no value to the cause of Holocaust remembrance and no value to history or posterity. We believe that energy is better spent promoting Holocaust awareness for the future benefit of society and cultures worldwide. So mankind won't forever be doomed to repeat the evils of the past. [http://blog.holocaustresearchproject.org/FeaturedComments.aspx]
(Personally I agree with this comment...)
So in conclusion...
Does it matter that so often more emphasis was made by governments and the media to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall this past November 9th, with little, if any, mention of Kristallnacht?
Is debating the Holocaust becoming more important than memorializing the victims? Are the "Debunkers" any different than the "Deniers" because they appear to take the moral high ground? Certainly if you ask members of each of these movements you will hear compelling arguments that support their respective cause.
But I think it was the anonymous Internet poster who summed it up best with the comment:
"The Holocaust is a fact that can be neither debated or denied!"
When you really think about it, what more truly need be said?
-Martin Friedhaus
"Every historical event is unique," he explains carefully. "It cannot be cloned exactly. So when I say ‘unique’, it stands completely apart from any kind of similar genocide attack, which is not true.
When I say ‘unprecedented’, I mean that it never happened like that before but because it happened like that during World War II, it can happen again. What has happened can be repeated. The Holocaust had no precedent, but it is a precedent."
In the 1990s, the growth of the Internet produced many conspiracy theory sites. Claims that the Holocaust did not exist, or did not exist on the scale claimed have been widely made on some conspiracy theory websites, many of which have blamed Jewish conspiracies for a range of issues, including the attack on the World Trade Center, the communist revolution, and AIDS.
Recently the terms Holocaust Industry and Shoah Business have come into vogue among Holocaust revisionists to express their perception that Jewish leaders promote the official story about the Holocaust for financial and political gain.
A number of authority figures stated publicly that the Internet allowed hate groups to introduce their messages to a widespread audience, and it was feared that Holocaust revisionism would gain in popularity as a result.
However we've also witnessed the evolution of the revisionist counter movement or "Holocaust Revisionist Debunkers" and if you think the Holocaust Deniers seemed kooky or paranoid in their methods, then the "Debunkers" can be simply downright psychotic in the way they approach the debate.
Renowned Holocaust Scholar Chris Webb made the following comment on "Holocaust Debunkers" in an editorial published by the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team:
"Visiting some of these web sites one is struck by the enormous amount of wasted effort, both in terms of arguing with Deniers, who will never change their particular view, unless some “ultimate proof” is provided, and the Deniers spending their time, peddling their seemingly senseless viewpoints, happy to be engaged in ‘debate.’
In addition, those self proclaimed “Debunkers” of revisionist theories are in many ways no different than the Deniers themselves. Most are only seeking a conflict or debate to engage in, and debunking revisionism affords them some sort of “moral high ground” to do it from."
In my own experience most of the "Debunking" tends to occur on conspiracy websites or "cheesy blogs" which specifically attempt to design there look and feel with an intent to perpetrate an air of credibility, and scholarship. They do this by associating themselves with respected Internet sites via web-links or reference quotes, despite the fact they often intersperse these links among paragraphs of profanity, name calling, threats and disparaging comments.
In Essen 1.000 anti-fascists marched in protest against fascist violence. In the Netherlands activities took place in 11 cities all over the country in many different ways, but mainly comparing the situation of refugees in 1938 and in 1997.
The European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees or "UNITED for Intercultural Action" has distributed 20.000 stickers and 5.000 information leaflets explaining the history of "Kristallnacht", the purpose of the commemorations and giving examples of racist practices in Europe. The secretariat has sent out several press releases and numerous lists of activities. International journalists have been referred to specific organizations for more in depth information. The information has been spread widely through the Internet as well.
But how the comparison of 1938 and 1989 does raise some questions on how history can and should be reviewed, is the elevation of importance, or the choice of governments to proselytize some events of history and not others, in itself a form of masked revisionism?
Within historiography, that is part of the academic field of history, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event.
The revisionist assumes the interpretation of a historical event or period, as accepted by the majority of scholars, needs significant change. In the case of Holocaust revisionism, or Holocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust, did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized.
Key elements of this claim are the rejection of any of the following: that the German Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews for extermination as a people; that more than five million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies; and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.
Holocaust deniers do not accept the term "denial" as an appropriate description of their point of view, and use the term Holocaust revisionism instead. Scholars use the term "denial" to differentiate Holocaust deniers from historical revisionists, who use established historical methodologies.
Although the number of active Holocaust denier authors is small, during certain periods they have been able to attract attention that is grossly out of proportion to their numbers and the level of their scholarship. Under the guise of a reasonable person's search for truth, Holocaust deniers spread falsehoods and misinformation that appears reasonable to the uninformed reader.
Often times they claim the mantle of free-speech saying they are for “continued research” into a “complex” and “misrepresented” history; yet, their method is never truly historical. Many deniers do not rely on artifacts or documentary evidence to create their hypotheses, instead they develop a history of opinion in which any manipulation or distortion of history is acceptable as one’s personal belief.
Today the Holocaust is widely memorialized as a seminal event in the history of Western civilization. But the means are sometimes criticized. Washington DC’s Holocaust memorial has been one bone of contention, and in contrast to the Holocaust Revisionism movement, a new breed of Holocaust "Revisionist Debunkers" has arisen.
Professor Yehuda Bauer Holocaust scholar and author of Rethinking the Holocaust, and an advisor on the creation of the USHMM in Washington makes the point of avoiding the term ‘unique’ in reference to the Holocaust. But if there was nothing quite like it before or since, why does Bauer shy away from it?
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/essays&editorials/memorial-debunk-debate-debauged.html
Holocaust Remembrance
A time to memorialize, debate, debunk or debauch?
Guest Publication by
Dr. Martin Friedhaus
[photos added to enhance the text]
[Please note that editorials posted in this section are the sole viewpoints of the individual author and do not necessarily
represent any collective opinion of the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, or the University of Northampton]
Tourists look at individually-painted dominoes along the former route of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.
World leaders joined German crowds on Monday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - a stark symbol of the Cold War that divided a city and a continent.
Recollections of November 9, 1989 dominated German newspaper headlines at the weekend, and television stations ran program after program of documentary footage, eyewitness accounts and discussion panels about the event that changed the face of Europe.
And while thousands of tourists have poured into the capital to mark the event which hastened the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Soviet Union, many have chosen to overlook another event that changed the face of Germany and Europe that also happened on the 9th of November..
Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass" "Kristallnacht" is a German word that consists of two parts: "Kristall" translates to "crystal" and refers to the look of broken glass and "Nacht" means "night." The accepted English translation is the "Night of Broken Glass."
The most infamous Anti-Semitic Pogrom in recent history occurred on November 9, 1938. Instigated primarily by Nazi party officials and the SA (Nazi Storm Troopers), the pogrom occurred throughout Germany (including annexed Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia). The name Kristallnacht has its origin in the untold numbers of broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed during the pogrom. Read more about Kristalnact [here]
The actions that occurred that night in 1938 culminated in a meeting on the 12th of November, chaired by Hermann Göring who made the following statement:
I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another." The path to the “Final Solution” has now been chosen. And, all the bureaucratic mechanisms for its implementation were now in place.
The point of comparison of the events that occurred on November 9th of both 1938 and 1989 is in no way intended to minimize or trivialize the significance of either of these dates on world history...
However many decades later, association with the Kristallnacht anniversary was cited as the main reason against choosing November 9, the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, as the new German national holiday; a different day was chosen (October 3, 1990 as the new German reunification day).
This is not to say that Kristallnact has been forgotten... In fact all over Europe hundreds of commemoration and protest activities have been organized on November 9 1997, International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism. The biggest demonstration took place in Yugoslavia. Between 1.000 and 3.000 people marched in the streets of Belgrade to protest against the on-going violence against Roma in their country.
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