If would be a shame if there were any lies wrapped up in Holocaust historiography.
Because, if there were, they would have the potential to seriously degrade what should be a pure remembrance.
If, for instance, the majority of concentration camp prisoners/workers died as a direct result of the Allies cutting Nazi supply lines.
And when these camps were “liberated” or otherwise found, public relations needed a story (and fast!) to account for this horrible loss of life which technically fell on the shoulders of the Allies.
If (and it’s a big if) that was the case, then such a “noble” lie might have been “borrowed” by the emerging Zionist state of Israel.
Anything to make way for the Jewish homeland.
To recap, if a majority of Jewish casualties in WWII were actually the result of the Allies attempting to starve the Nazi state into submission through siege tactics, then the Allies would have had motive and opportunity to foist upon the world a caricatured distortion of the facts.
Caricatures do not do true honor to the victims.
And if the emerging Jewish state of Israel used such distorted facts to further lobby for a “homeland” (a place where people were already living…non-Jews…for a long time), we could say that “Israel” also had motive and opportunity to participate in this “noble lie” (for different reasons).
But what is most sad is that what I have just written would get me arrested in several countries of the world (mostly in Europe).
We will mention one: France.
I have spoken about the Loi Gayssot in critical terms before.
And I do not think it is a smart piece of legislation.
It is, ironically, a very authoritarian law.
If I understand it correctly, this law (aimed at “Holocaust deniers”) punishes even those who object on critical grounds to any factual aspect of Holocaust “history”.
As we know, history has been wrong before.
And it can be wrong again.
Furthermore, we never close the door on a particular epoch.
For every other event (except the Holocaust), we welcome new research which brings the situation into clearer focus.
The Holocaust is the one period of history which is off limits (verboten) to any sort of skepticism.
And it is this sort of authoritarian attitude of anti-history which will be the unraveling of whatever the liars of history are trying to hide.
Lies are a big part of every world event.
Operators at the lower level just want to cover their butts.
White lies.
But these white lies can pile up.
And pretty soon the official historiography bears little resemblance to the actual event in question.
Mid-level operators merely want to move up in life.
They want to keep the bigwigs off their backs.
So they condone low-level lies.
And they even concoct some fairly witty stratagems of their own.
And these regional efforts coalesce into inexplicable gumbos of narrative (like the story we have all been given concerning 9/11).
But the real fuckery happens at the high-level.
Here is where everything is a game.
Here is where hubris reigns supreme.
Here is where the Ivy League and the Oxford/Cambridge set conspire in an unholy matrimony of minds to make “a new world”.
These are the minds which, largely, have been so besotted with “logic” that they can no longer entertain the idea of a God or any sort of higher power.
And it is at this level that public relations and social engineering churn out lies which are meant to shape world history.
Lies which are meant to redraw the map.
If the gas chambers did not exist (except in the propagandistic imagination of Allied copy) in any Nazi camp, then it would have likely been a high-level wonk who conceived of such a grand macabre to once and for all paint the Nazis as “pure evil” and the Allies as “beneficent warriors” fighting a “just war”.
So let’s see how censored the Internet is, ok?
As of today, you can still harbor some doubts.
A mathematician doubts.
Bertrand Russell doubted Gottlob Frege.
And Russell was right to doubt.
Logic and mathematics teach us that most “complete, unified” systems eventually fall by the wayside.
That is because they are flawed.
Our knowledge improves.
Some discoveries are truly special, but it is always a process of learning.
The Gayssot Act in France (and other similar legislation in neighboring countries) wants you to take (on faith) the complete accuracy of Holocaust historiography SO FAR.
Such legislation is eager to CLOSE THE BOOK on all nuance and scholarship.
But there is at least one website which seems to harbor healthy doubts about aspects of the Holocaust.
Remember: questioning ANY PART OF THE HOLOCAUST in France is a violation of the Gayssot Act.
Excuse my French, but that is fucked up!
Don’t we want the truth?
If Hillary Clinton was running a child trafficking ring, do we want to know that?
Yes.
If Donald Trump was colluding with the Russian government to get elected, don’t we want to know that?
Yes.
If the gas chambers were a fanciful way to paint the Nazis as the ultimate enemies, don’t we want to know that there were (in fact) no gas chambers in any concentration camp?
Yes.
We want to know.
And we also want to know how bad the Nazis were.
We want to know about babies on bayonets.
We want to know every Jew-hating idea they ever penned or yelled.
Because we do not approve of this Jew hating.
But we will not punish speech.
In our quest to quash the Nazi strain of hatred, we will not become (ourselves) “Nazis”.
Because the Loi Gayssot only encourages people to seek out “taboo” knowledge.
I can’t believe I agree with the scumbag Cass Sunstein on an actual point, but I think I do.
In other words: don’t make the knowledge taboo.
Let the cream rise to the top.
Let the crap sink.
Do not criminalize idiocy.
AND DO NOT EVEN think ABOUT A CHINESE METHOD LIKE REEDUCATION!
So here is the site, dear friends:
Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.
Sounds reasonable, right?
Don’t let some shit-stained-pants-wearing talking head deter you from visiting this site.
Remember when CNN told the world that only “they” could report on WikiLeaks?
These tactics are wearing thin.
If the truth is out there (thank you X-Files), then people will find it.
And the frauds will be exposed.
And the genuine articles will be raised up on cheerful arms.
The global media wants you to think that only dumb Arabs and Persians would ever “deny” the Holocaust.
Do some fucking research!
And I fall into the same target.
I tell myself, “Do some fucking research!”
I do.
All the time.
Just as it was impractical to get an unbiased assessment of 9/11 when the commissioners were appointed by the Bush administration, so too is it impractical to think that a Jewish (or, God forbid, Israeli) author can give an impartial account of any aspect of the Holocaust.
And yet, this is a conundrum.
For Jews, no period of history is so important.
And I sympathize with the call to “never forget”.
But we must be extremely careful to get right exactly what it is we are to “never forget”.
“Never forget” rings especially hollow in the United States regarding 9/11…because most people have absolutely no deep understanding of that event.
I have done my research on that fateful day.
And everything which led up to it.
And much of what followed.
So in the case of 9/11, “never forget” is meaningless…because the vast majority NEVER KNEW IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Which is the trouble with such campaigns.
The message, then, is “Never forget…what we’ve told you…happened.”
Well, that’s not very bloody comforting!
And the propaganda is pretty transparent.
Which brings us to the “Holocaust industry” and this masterpiece of a film (really): Life is Beautiful.
There is very little propaganda in this film.
There is very little mindless regurgitation of dubious assertions.
But yet it is still there.
And hence my opening diatribe.
First, let me get in one more jab.
Here is something I have actually read.
By Robert Faurisson.
It is called, “The ‘Problem of the Gas Chambers'”.
http://codoh.com/library/document/868/?lang=en
It is from 1980.
There are 141 pieces by Dr. Faurisson (among many other authors) on the CODOH site.
I have read few of them.
But enough to pique my curiosity.
As I said, it makes me highly suspicious when an obviously brilliant scholar such as Dr. Faurisson is “refuted” solely by ad hominem attacks.
When such is the case, said victim only grows stronger.
And Dr. Faurisson is not attacking the Jews.
He’s attacking history.
With logic.
Read it for yourself.
To be recursive, he seems to have found a “fatal flaw” in the historiography which predominates in such shite as Schindler’s List.
We don’t need a John Williams swooning violin melody to tell us the truth.
We just need the fucking truth.
Whatever it is.
We don’t need music in our museums to drive home a particular point.
We just need the artifacts.
They must be laid out in a way which allows for logical conclusion.
They must not LEAD the museum-goer to a particular conclusion.
If they do, then we have entered the realm of propaganda.
And we should be made aware of our participation as guinea pigs in such attempted thought control.
You can read about Dr. Faurisson’s struggles against the French government here (in his biography on the CODOH site):
http://codoh.com/library/categories/1104/
Ok…
La vita è bella.
🙂
It’s a beautiful movie.
Which I saw many times in the theater.
When it came out.
One of the most important and formative films for me as a cinephile.
Roberto Benigni is my favorite actor ever.
And Nicoletta Braschi is wonderful in this film.
Furthermore, Benigni’s film direction is underrated.
The scene, for instance, where he and Sergio Bustric lay in bed is such a lushly-filmed tableau.
I wanted to live in that scene.
Amongst those antiques.
And their hilarious repartee involving Schopenhauer 🙂
But Life is Beautiful is notable mostly as a work of naïveté.
Like Cinema Paradiso.
Instead of Ennio Morricone’s gossamer score, we get Nicola Piovani’s criminally-unavailable musical backing.
[get on that, Spotify!]
There is true magic in this film.
The kiss between Benigni and Braschi under the banquet table.
Sure…
There is so much Chaplin in this film.
Mistaken identity.
The whole thing starts with a virtual rip of The Great Dictator.
But Benigni tells a new story.
And the details don’t matter.
One death was too many…during World War II.
And one family torn apart…was too many…during the Holocaust.
-PD
paulydeathwish 