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Given that we've already had our bit of Holocaust "revisionism" this early in the week, I thought I'd share some interesting, trivia, I guess that I recently learned of in that community.
I am given to understand that the most "mainstream" source of Holocaust revisionism is an organization called the Institute For Historical Review (IHR). They appear to be a pretty standard research organization in some ways, publishing papers and web articles and holding conferences and such. While they do not claim to be solely dedicated to the subject, they sure publish a good bit of material that's highly critical of Jews and their influence on the world, the history of the Holocaust, and apologetic towards the Nazi regime. I understand them to be the original source of many of the standard Holocaust denier talking points involving such things as "resettlement in the east".
It turns out that, way back in 2009, the director of the IHR, one Mark Weber, published an article titled "How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism?" in which he basically admits that the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust is accurate. He hasn't really changed his mind that much - no indication of some cabal "getting to him" somehow. Rather, he now takes the position that while "Jewish-Zionist power is a palpable reality with harmful consequences for America, the Middle East, and the entire global community", the Holocaust basically happened the way it's described, but it's not really that important of a factor in "Jewish Power" and it's not a good use of their time to attack it. Here's a pull quote that I think is representative of the basic point he's making:
There's also a 30 minute video interview with one Jim Rizoli, a considerably more enthusiastic Holocaust denier, in which he expresses basically the same view and goes on in more detail about a few points. IMO, he comes off as pretty calm and reasonable, while Rizoli comes off as rather unhinged and obsessed.
I think I agree with him in the sense that, if you wanna try and make a point about the role and influence of Jews in today's society, go ahead and make it, but quibbling over the details of exactly what happened to how many in the Holocaust is pointless.
Weber, along with David Cole and David Irving, who were all pretty heavy-hitters in the revisionist scene back in the 90s, have all accepted the reality of the extermination program for some time. I'm not sure about Weber, but Cole and Irving, also accept 'limited' gassings at Auschwitz. For this reason among others the IHR has kind of fallen out of favor with most deniers. CODOH has more or less taken its place. 'Scholarly' Holocaust denial these days is basically just Carlo Mattogno who puts out a book like every two months (though to be fair large chunks of his books tend to be copy-pasted from his older books), with a little help from Jürgen Graf and Thomas Dalton. As you say, there's also Jim Rizoli I guess but he's a total clown. Ryan Faulk (the Alternative Hypothesis) is also dipping his toe into denial lately but he's not doing a very good job of it.
Interestingly there's actually something of a laundry list of 'former deniers.' Eric Hunt (a schizophrenic who once tried to kidnap Elie Wiesel) was probably the biggest name in denial in the early 2010s because of a number of revisionist documentaries he produced which got a lot of exposure on youtube back before they banned all that stuff. In 2016 he caused kind of a stir when he decided that the Holocaust happened after all and revisionism was bankrupt. There's also Jean-Claude Pressac who was sent to Auschwitz archives by French denier Robert Faurisson in hopes of disconfirming the extermination once and for all and instead ended up convinced that it actually happened. There was a pretty prolific/well-known blogger and poster on the various denial and anti-denial forums back in the day who went by "the Black Rabbit of Inlé" and who also ultimately decided that the evidence supported an extermination program.
I know about Cole's turnaround but Irving is news to me. Mind sharing source?
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=jyav1uh0KqA](This is Irving speaking in 2016, the audio is not great but I think decipherable)
This is from his website, where he talks about Jews at Auschwitz being gassed on a "small scale"
Probably worth noting that Irving was never really a "professional" denier. He never wrote an actual book focusing on the Holocaust, it was all tangential to his main interests. Irving's main thing was specifically denying the use of some of the specific buildings in Auschwitz as gas chambers, and I think he still holds to at least some of that. So it's not totally clear to me to what extent Irving ever denied the Holocaust in toto.
Interesting, thanks!
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