DETRO IT J EWIS H NEWS

tute of Contemporary Jew-
ry, labeled powerful and
dangerous. Using "distort-
ed testimony," it "denies
what happened at
Auschwitz," Professor
Bauer told the Jerusalem

Post.
Mr. Smith says the "lies'
about the Holocaust began
thanks to misinformation
spread by the Soviets —
misinformation also used
to convict Nazi war crimi-
nals at Nuremberg. From
there, it was taken up by
Jews or, as Mr. Smith ex-
plains it, "our Zionist
friends took the
ball and ran with
it."
David Cole's re-
lationship with
Bradley Smith
Empty gas-pellet cannisters, used al Auschwitz, Sobibor and Majdanek.
began about three
years ago, when
from History, in which he alleges that anti-Semitism is
Mr. Cole started
caused by Jewish self-hatred.
working as a cameraman for some of Mr.
Through Mr. McCalden, who has since died of AIDS,
Smith's "revisionist" projects.
Mr. Cole began hobnobbing with such infamous figures
"Cole was a nobody then," says Robert New-
as Ernst Zundel, a German native who now lives in
man, a supporter of the Los Angeles chapter
Canada. The Anti-Defamation League describes Mr.
of the Jewish Defense League, an organization
Zundel as "an active pro-Nazi pro-
that has had several run-ins
pagandist.
with Mr. Cole. "Now look at
Mr. Zundel served on the board
Mr. Zundel's books
where he is. It's disgusting."
of the now-defunct White Power
Mr. Cole has indeed made
include
Report and is co-author of The
his mark in the world of
Hitler We Loved and Why and au-
Holocaust denial. He was in-
The Hitler We Loved and terviewed
thor of UFOs: Nazi Secret
for CBS News' "48
Weapons? which, he says, contin-
Why and UFOs: Nazi
Hours" TV program on hate
ue to be used at stations under the
crimes. He has been inter-
Secret Weapons?.
earth's surface.
viewed on radio and in news-
Although he does not agree
papers. Last year, Mr. Cole
with everything Mr. Zundel es-
appeared with the IHR's
pouses — "he's a 'Jewish conspiracy' theorist" — Mr.
Journal of Historical Review Editor Mark Weber on the
Cole today counts Ernst Zundel among his friends. "I
"Montel Williams Show" on Yom HaShoah.
would never want to live in a world controlled by Ernst
David Cole is not the first with a Jewish heritage to
Zundel, but I tend to like the man personally," he says.
become intimately involved with anti-Semites (the late
Mr. Zundel has returned the compliment, writing in
Frank Collin, who wanted to lead the Nazi march in
a recent issue of his newsletter, "I take the young Jew
Skokie, was the son of a Jewish father).
David Cole any time over the beer-guzzling cowards
"But I don't know of anyone else who has gone this
and snivelers and critics of my action."
Mr. Cole's closest comrade-in-arms,
however, is undoubtedly Bradley Smith.
A former construction worker who did
not attend college and admits, "I'm not
a historian," Mr. Smith became inter-
ested in the "revisionist" movement be-
cause of the "free-press angle." He is
troubled, he says, that Holocaust deniers
are rarely allowed to have their voices
heard.
Mr. Smith, 63, has attracted nation-
al attention by trying to place Holocaust
denial ads in college newspapers around
the country. Among his successes this
school year are the University of Michi-
gan's Michigan Daily and Michigan
State University's State News.
The good news, Mr. Smith says, is
that Jews often serve as editors of col-
lege papers. For while Christian colum-
nists like George Will are busy labeling
Holocaust deniers "lunatics," young Jews
"have taken this thing very seriously."
Mr. Smith co-produced Mr. Cole's
Auschwitz video, which Yehuda Bauer,
head of the Hebrew University's Insti- From an exhiliit at the U.S.1 - lolocaust Memorialin Washington,i1C,:-

By 1919, Hitle't had called for"the removal of Jews altogether" -----

far into the anti-Semitic right and continues to claim a
Jewish identity," says Marc Caplan, a research analyst
with the national office of the ADL and editor of the
ADL's Hitler's Apologists: The Anti-Semitic Propagan-
da of Holocaust "Revisionism." "There have been Jew-
ish individuals who disguised their ethnicity and there
have been apologists, but nobody else has gone as far
in the movement."
Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt, au-
thor of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on
Truth and Memory, believes Mr. Cole has gone just
about as far as he can.
There's a lot of "joy and rejoicing" right now in "revi-
sionist" camps because of David Cole, whom Holocaust
deniers regard as "a useful toy," Professor Lipstadt says.
But don't expect him to ever rise to the top of the ranks.
The very element that draws "revisionists" to David
Cole — the fact that he is Jewish — is what inevitably
will keep them from bring-
ing him into the inner cir-
cle.
Holocaust deniers often
make a point of noting
David's religious heritage,
but no one is as great a
promoter of "David Cole
the Jew" as David himself.
He still identifies as an
atheist, is not active in any
Jewish organization, and
says he feels no special
bond with his Jewish an-
cestors. But Mr. Cole
brings up the fact that he
is Jewish virtually every
time he speaks out on the
Holocaust. Perhaps
nowhere is this so evident
as on his videotape of
Auschwitz.
The tape, which sells for
$49, is being marketed pri-
marily through the IHR.
The organization's
brochure on the tape features a letter from Mr. Cole
that reads, in part:
"When I went to Europe in the autumn of 1992 to
conduct my own investigation of the sites of the alleged
`gassings' of Jews during World War Two, two ideas
were paramount in my mind.
"The first was to record the trip on videotape...The
second idea was that I would go as a
Jew...I reasoned that if I went to
Auschwitz as a Jew rather than as a
revisionist that I would have a better
chance to cut through the misinfor-
mation and lies that so distort what re-
ally happened in the German camps
during the war...So, donning my
yarmulke, and not letting anybody in
Poland know where my sympathies
were, I began my journey."

T

he Holocaust "revisionist"
movement began in France
when, soon after World War
II, fascist Maurice Bardeche
asserted that the Nazis' gas chambers
were never used to kill anyone. Instead,
he said, their purpose was to disinfect
clothing (which Holocaust deniers con-
tinue to assert).
Paul Rassinier and Robert Fauris-
son, also of France, expanded on Mr.
Bardeche's claims and labeled false the
entire concept of a Nazi genocide
against Jews. (One of Mr. Faurisson's
defenders is, like Mr. Cole, a Jew:
Noam Chomsky. The famed MIT lin-

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