From: lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew J. Lazarus)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: B-CPU: (FAQ) A Layman's Guide (Long - 653 lines)
Date: 25 Jul 1992 16:21:59 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: tsunami.berkeley.edu
Keywords: b-cpu,IHR,Carto,Smith,Gannon

In article <5609@ucru2.ucr.edu> mmason@ucrengr.ucr.edu (martin mason) writes:

>I am distressed by some of the statements that this article makes in regards
>to Bradley Smith.  The information presented makes no effort to refute any
>of Bradley Smith's arguements. 
>Any information refuting the 
>arguements of Smith would be appreciated, as I have no vested interest in 
>any particular interpretation of history.

Refutations of Smith's main ads appear regularly in this newsgroup.
They must have expired from your machine (and mine too). Here are a few
of the main points:

1. As a general rule, Smith sets up and refutes straw men. For example,
he goes to some lengths to show that there were no gas chambers at
Dachau (and then shows that on one occasion a prosecutor at Nuremberg
said there were). But any historical work on the Holocaust will agree
with Smith. The method of execution at Dachau, which was not an
extermination camp, was shooting. Similarly, he talks about the downward
reduction from 4million to 1+million in deaths on the Auschwitz memorial
site. "Why was there no celebration" asks Smith. The answer (which he
doesn't mention) is that Western historians had long realized that he
Polish government had wildly exaggerated the number of 
non-Jewish Polish prisoners killed for their own political reasons. Once
Communism ended in Poland, the number was brought in line with the
general non-Communist estimate. There was no (or perhaps a tiny)
reduction in the number of Jews stateed to have been killed.
Similarly, the discovery of one long-lost and presumed-dead Jew is
thought to refuted the existence of ANY really dead Jews. Logically, his
arguments are bizarre

2. Smith falsely suggests that Churchill and Eisenhower doubted the
Holocaust since they didn't mention it by name in particualr volumes of
their memoirs. On reseacrhg, they hd plenty to say about Nazi treatment
of Jews, and it was right in line with the historical mainstream.
Smith's ad would probably be libelous in this respect if Churchill and
Eisenhower were still alive.

>Smith states on page 8 of 
>"COnfessions of a Holocaust Revisionist" that "This isn't as clear-cut as
>people think it is.  I never say
>that the Holocaust never happened.  A thousand 
>year old Jewish culture in Eastern Europe was destroyed in three or four
>years."

3. Smith believes in a Holocaust** as distinct from everyone else's
Holocaust. Holocaust** was some regrettable accident of a few hundred
thousand Jews dying when their delightful pleasure cruise at Camp
Auschwitz was interrupted by nasty Allied attacks that reduced its food
supply. There was no *deliberate* killing of Jews in his Holocaust** and
the number of dead Jews was minor. (Where the rest went is seldom
mentioned in Smith's material.) [Actually, I imagine many of Smith's
followers believe in the existence of the Holocaust, no **, and in fact
they approve of it. However, they get much better public attention when
they put out their dishonest pseudo-Holocaust crap.]

>Finally, I am writing this because I feel that your attacks are just as 
>unjust as those which you would accuse others of.  I admire Bradley Smith
>for his anti war sentiments as published in the Visalia Times Delta 
>during the Persian Gulf Massacre.

I also opposed the Persian Gulf war, so I guess my posting is just as
good as Smith's.

andy lazarus
Xref: sparky alt.revisionism:598 soc.history:6580