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10 December 21 . 2006
f you want to start a
lively "discussion" with
me, bring up Holocaust
deniers.
If you want to get run over
by an angry Jew driving a
Mini-Cooper, tell me you are
a Holocaust denier.
So imagine my holi-
day mood last week as I
read about the "Holocaust
Conference" taking place in
Tehran, Iran, on Dec. 12-13.
The "International Conference:
Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,"
organized by the Iranian Foreign
Ministry and under the direction of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
included "scholars" from 30 countries.
According to the New York Times,
"Robert Faurisson, an academic from
France, said in his speech that the
Holocaust was a myth created to justify
the occupation of Palestine, meaning
the creation of Israel"
The story also said, "Among those
representing the United States was
the former Ku Klux Klan leader David
Duke, whose prepared remarks, issued
by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the
gas chambers in which millions per-
ished actually did not exist"
"Did not exist," is a hard thing to
prove when you can stare at countless
photos of them — some photos taken
with "pride" by the Nazis themselves.
You can find Duke's 23-minute
speech on YouTube.com, but you can
find a better use of your time watching
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer take Duke on
at www.youtube.com/watch?v=
-v2f-WC4cjo.
I've met hundreds of Holocaust survi-
vors who said they watched their loved
ones disappear during "selection" after a
train-ride to a camp.
My father, of blessed memory, woke
up every morning with a tattooed
number on his left forearm. My mother
bears a scar on the top of her head from
a Nazi bullwhip, and she's deathly afraid
of rodents and bugs because they are
reminders of her Holocaust living con-
ditions.
Their memories in the German con-
centration camps were anything but the
photos of happy, smiling Jews working
in Nazi labor camps shown during the
conference.
I wish Duke could have stopped off at
Auschwitz/Birkenau in Poland to look
at the Zyklon B gas canisters and the
chimneys and the barracks.
I wish he could have
stopped off at the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington,
D.C., to see the film footage
of dead Jews shoveled into
the crematoriums.
I hope he came home in
time to watch 60 Minutes
on Dec. 17, and saw the file
cabinets filled with 50 mil-
lion pages of Nazi records
uncovered in Bad Arolsen,
Germany, that showed — in excruci-
ating detail — what happened to 15
million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and
other people that the Nazis deemed not
worthy of life.
Although their views are far from
mainstream, why not just ignore the
deniers if they're only a small group of
crazy loons?
People ignored Hitler and his small
group of crazy loons in the 1930s and
look what happened.
The outrage is growing, which makes
this a good story after all.
The conference in Iran sparked pro-
tests in the West, according to the New
York Times: "Germany summoned the
Iranian chargé d'affaires to express its
anger; and the French foreign minister,
Philippe Douste-Blazy, has condemned
the conference:'
At a press conference held at
the HMC on Dec. 18, the Michigan
Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion,
about 15 members representing a wide
spectrum of faiths, made a joint state-
ment condemning Iran's conference.
"Insidious efforts by the current
president of Iran to invalidate the hor-
rors and lingering psychological trauma
of the Holocaust through his so-called
`conference' is an unacceptable act
denying historical sufferings of a people
and an appalling assault on human
rights throughout the world," said Eide
Alawan, who read the prepared state-
ment, and represented the Council of
Islamic Organizations of Michigan.
Although the press conference was
sparsely attended, it's still a step in the
right direction.
Deniers should be called out on
every lie, every time; because without
the truth, a lie repeated often enough is
believed.
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com .