4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 6, 1993 c1e £icigun al 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. D UT? 75c8 t i v- ('ec4ro ioic-t-iv, W)L.L 'BE CAl THEM OUT Non 2 To.Xe.5 t.W£.r 'NET VEN O lLeD IN M0 6 T ..E / cA4 h~ 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 nn 1ritml da . o~f fhP. oiiii i'wni nt, Wui- 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