From: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay)
Subject: Revisionist Alert!?
Keywords: Gypsies
Reply-To: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au
Organization: Australian National University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 12:20:14 GMT


Those of you who (quite rightly) abhor the Holocaust-is-a-hoax 
garbage represented by our very own George and Ralphie Show will
no doubt be dismayed to learn that the same sort of thing is
being conducted from quite another direction.

By "the same sort of thing" I am not meaning to imply an 
equivalence of motivation or depth or virulence, just that in
both cases the established facts of history are being denied
for motives other than the search for historical truth.  You
can form your own judgement of what those motives are.

In several letters of Noam Chomsky, he refers to one Edward
Alexander, who he describes as "a leading figure in Americans
for Safe Israel".  I can't verify that, but I can identify him
as a Professor of English at the University of Washington and
Tel Aviv University (at least in 1983).  According to Chomsky,
Alexander wrote in Congress Monthly (journal of the American
Jewish Congress) that the Nazi genocide of Gypsies was an
"exploded fiction".  

I made an effort to track down this reference, in order to 
ascertain Alexander's source for this preposterous claim, but 
alas the Congress Monthly is unavailable to me.  However, I did
manage to find an article of Alexander's in the book 
"Antisemitism in the Contemporary World", editted by M. Curtis.
On page 228, Alexander makes the following claim:
 
   Bauer demonstrates that, contrary to legend, there never 
   was a Nazi policy to apply the measures used against the 
   Jews to other national communities.

Naturally, the question "What about the Gypsies?" came into my 
mind, closely followed by "Surely [renowned Holocaust scholar] 
Yehuda Bauer never made such a claim".  Well, Alexander refers 
here to page 35 of Bauer's book "The Holocaust in Historical 
Perspective", and there we find that Alexander's sentence
from "contrary" to "communities" is an exact quote from Bauer.
On the following page, Bauer provides the following:

   The only group that was destined for wholesale murder was
   the Jews, for reasons we have outlined above.  From what 
   we know about the Nazi policy towards the Gypsies, a 
   parallel exists, but it is more apparent than real.  There
   were Gypsy tribes that were murdered, and there were others
   that were protected.  Individual Gypsies living among the
   rest of the population were not ferreted out and many even 
   served in the Nazi army.  It appears that the Nazis were
   ambivalent about what to do with them, but those who were
   murdered were the victims more of a campaign against 
   so-called "asocials" than against the Gypsy people as such.

Personally, I think this is a disgraceful distortion.  Let me 
explain what I mean one sentence at a time.  Note that Bauer
gives no references for this passage.

Bauer: "There were Gypsy tribes that were murdered, and there
  were others that were protected". 
Comment: This is not much less misleading than "There were Jews 
  who were sent to the gas chambers and Jews who were permitted 
  to leave".  (Bauer himself gives some examples of the latter.)
  In any case, the "protection" seems to have involved internment
  in camps where typhus and hunger were hardly less efficient than
  gas chambers.  As the war progressed, the "protected" groups
  became fewer and fewer.  In many places (Holland, Luxemburg,
  Estonia, Lithuania) the death rate was near 100%; in other 
  places less.  (About 75% for German Gypsies.)

Bauer: "Individual Gypsies living among the rest of the population 
  were not ferreted out and many even served in the Nazi army."
Comment: Gypsy soldiers in the army were demobilised by 1942
  and many went to the gas chambers with the others.

Bauer: "It appears that the Nazis were ambivalent about what to do 
  with them, but those who were murdered were the victims more of
  a campaign against so-called "asocials" than against the Gypsy 
  people as such."
Comment: The category of "asocials" to which most Gypsies were
  assigned was the same one used for quarter- and half-Jews.
  In any case, since their supposed racial classification was for
  practical purposes the sole determinant of their "asocial"-ness,
  Bauer's statement is disingeneous at best.  Being a Gypsy of
  "mixed blood" (about 90% of all Gypsies, according to Nazi
  "experts") was basically a death sentence.  What is the 
  difference between killing people because they are "Gypsy"
  and because they are "Gypsy and therefore asocial"?
  
Of course, to say that the Nazis' treatment of Gypsies was in 
every way similar to their treatment of Jews would be silly.
There were many differences.  However, to play on these
differences as if they somehow reduce the enormity of the
Gypsy Holocaust is imho rather disgusting.

References:
B. Muller-Hill, Murderous Science.
D. Kendrick and G. Puxon, The destiny of Europe's Gypsies.
H. Fein, Accounting for Genocide.

Brendan.
  





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