4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 6, 1993
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420 Maynard
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed
by students at the
University of Michigan
JOSH DuBow
Editor in Chief
ANDREw LEVY
Editorial Page Editor
. ,
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board.
All other cartoons, articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
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An explanation to our readers
On October 24, 1991 an advertise-
ment appeared in the Daily entitled
"Holocaust Revisionism: The Case
for Open Debate," paid for by the
Committee for Open Debate on the
Holocaust (CODOH). Last week, we
received an op-ed article by CODOH
Director Bradley Smith, which ap-
pears below. Let us be explicit: we
feel that there is no evidence that
could possibly support the conclusion
that the Holocaust never took place.
However, while the Daily abhors the
ideas inherent in Holocaust revision-
ism, including the denial of the mur-
ders of 12 million at the whim of a
fascist dictator, we believe that it is
important to include Smith's piece.
Our reasons for doing so are twofold.
Two years ago, when CODOH's
advertisement appeared in the Daily,
it sparked a campus-wide debate over
whether or not it was appropriate to
air viewpoints like Smith's. The de-
bate raged on for months, and for this
reason we feel Smith's article is rel-
evant to the community.
The second reason, however, is
more important. When CODOH's
advertisement appeared, the Daily and
its staff came under criticism from
many members of the community for
approving its printing. Today, as then,
we believe that suppressing such
viewpoints - no matter how heinous
- only leaves them to fester and
grow. If they are not given a venue to
be aired, they fail to receive the scru-
tiny they deserve -and they eventu-
ally emerge, much more dangerous
than if they had been exposed from
the start.
We recognize that many of you
will disagree with our decision. How-
ever, we steadfastly believe that
Smith's article is relevant (if mis-*
guided), and that it needs to be aired.
Still, we encourage you to become
more educated about the Holocaust,
so that when someone brings forth
ideas like Smith's, you can expose
them for what they are: pure drivel.
- JOSH DUBOW
Editor in Chief
ANDREW LEVY
Editorial Page Editor
Museum lacks evidence of genocide
By BRADLEY SMITH
After 10 years in the planning,
$165 million in start-up costs and a
government guarantee of tens of
millions of dollars in tax subsidies,
the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum demonstrates
why, according to a Roper
Organization poll, more than 30
percent of all adult Americans have
doubts about the orthodox
Holocaust story.
What are the facts?
The Museum displays no proof
anywhere of homicidal "gassing"
chambers, and no proof that even
one individual was "gassed" at any
camp liberated by the allied armies.
"Proof' for a gas chamber at
Birkenau is a plastic model created
by a Polish artiste. A plastic copy of
a metal door is displayed as "proof'
of a homicidal gas chamber at
Maidanek. And, incredibly, this
museum has simply "dropped" the
Auschwitz gas chamber, the one
visited yearly by hundreds of
thousands of tourists.
There is no mention of gas
chambers at Buchenwald or even at
Dachau, where after World War II
American GIs and German civilians
were assured that more than
200,000 victims were "gassed and
burned." Human soap? Human skin
lamp shades? Not a sign of any of
them in this museum. All gone -
straight down the memory hole!
The notion that eyewitness
testimony, which this museum relies
heavily on, given under highly
politicized and emotional
circumstances is, prima facie, true,
was refuted by the Supreme Court
of Israel when it acquitted John
Smith is director of the Committee
for Open Debate on the Holocaust.
Demjanjuk of being "Ivan the
Terrible." The Israeli court found
that the "eyewitnesses" who
testified against Demjanjuk could
not be believed!
Deborah Lipstadt, in her much-
praised "Denying the Holocaust,"
argues that revisionists ("deniers")
should not be debated because there
is not, there can not be, another side
to the Holocaust story. She charges
that it is "hateful" to listen to a
defense of those accused of mass
murder! In essence, she argues that
we bury America's old civil virtues
of free inquiry and open debate -
but to what end?
The Deborah Lipstadts -- and
there's a clique of them on every
campus - work to suppress
revisionist research and demand
that students and faculty ape this
fascist behavior. If you refuse to
accept the Lipstadt clique as your
intellectual fuhrers, you risk being
slandered as an "anti-Semite."
These quasi-religious holocaust
zealots claim that because of the
"purity" of their own feelings about
the Holocaust, yours are soiled if
you doubt what they preach as
"truth."
Both Winston Churchill, in his
massive six-volume history of
World War II, and Dwight D.
Eisenhower in his memoirs, omitted
all reference to "gas chambers" and
their use in an alleged "genocide"
of the Jews. How do the museum
and the Deborah Lipstadts explain
that?
To many it will appear
impossible that deception on such a
grand scale as that being exposed
by revisionist research can actually
be taking place. But such deception
is not unusual in the realms of
politics, ideology or religion. We
are being deceived daily about the
orthodox history of the Holocaust.
All we have to do is look in order to
see it.
The museum's exhibit technique
is a mixutre of sinister suggestion
and dishonest omission. The first
display confronting you when you
begin the museum tour is a wall-
sized photograph of American
soldiers looking on while corpses
smolder on a pyre. The "context" in.
which you see the photo, the
museum itself, suggest that the dead
are Jews "exterminated" by
Germans. But were the prisoners
killed or did they die of typhus or
some other disease during the last
terrible weeks of the war?
Autopsies made by Allied medical
personnel found that they died of
disease. Not one individual was
found to have been "gassed." All
such relevant information is
purposely omitted from the exhibit.
We don't even know that the dead
pictured in the photo are Jews!
Unable to judge the significance
of the photograph yourself, and not
wanting to believe the museum
would mislead you, the viewer is
moved to accept the dishonest
suggestion that it represents the
"genocide" of the Jews.
School bureaucrats, career-
driven professors and an opulent
Holocaust lobby of self-described
intellectual giants who live in abject
fear of open debate on this matter,
make up the last barrier against a
free exchange of ideas about the
Holocaust. It's childish, and
dishonest, to insinuate that open
debate is somehow "dangerous" to
the Jewish community. Don't
believe it! Open debate will benefit
Jews and Gentiles alike -- for
precisely the same reasons.
Faculty smuggler discredits MSU
Jeffrey Williams, a Michigan State
University microbiology professor,
said MSU faculty and students
smuggled tens of thousands of U.S.
dollars into Sudan to conduct research
without having to exchange the fed-
eral funds at Sudanese banks.
Normally, local banks used by the
University would wire the funds to an
authorized overseas bank that would
convert the money according to stan-
dard exchange rates.
Instead, Williams said university
were involved. It also may violate
MSU's federal research grant con-
tract with the National Institutes of
Health. In addition, Williams admit-
ted that some of the funds were used
to bribe Sudanese officials, who
granted the researchers favors.
Williams said, however, that all
of these practices were essential to
conduct research in Sudan, all the
money was used for legitimate rea-
sons and the funds did not end up in
the pockets of the researchers. Also,
proven true. The university already
has lost credibility from the recurring
scandals that have made national news
- and this will mark the second time
MSU's scientific integrity has been
called into question.
Irresponsible, illegal actions such
as those described by Williams must
be eliminated at the faculty and stu-
dent levels, and within the entire MSU
community -particularly within the
scientific sector.
Although MSU claims to have had
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The Holocaust is real enough to me
By JESSIE HALLADAY
Sometimes it's hard for me to
comprehend the cruelty that exists
in our world. And when I come face
to face with the reality of its.
existence, I find myself saddened
and overwhelmed. This has
happened to me twice in regard to
the excrutiating cruelty of the
Hnlne-qust_
I recently had this overwhelmed
feeling again when I visited the
new United States Holocaust
Museum in Washington. Compiled
within this one building is the most
amazing and frightening collection
of artifacts I have ever seen.
When I entered thebuilding to
start the self-guided tour, I was
vivenl a ca2rdiwhichb toldlthe s torv of
being torn apart and whole villages
being wiped out. I cried over an
exhibit of shoes that were collected
at several camps. I studied the faces
in the photos taken of a destroyed
village. I listened to survivors
recount their tales on the film they
were continually showing.
And when I was done touring
the exhibikts.Iwondered how this