Iran defiant as anger mounts over Holocaust forum

Breitbart.com ^ | Dec. 12, 2006 | Breitbart

[DogByte6RER]

Iran defiant as anger mounts over Holocaust forum

Dec 12 9:37 AM US/Eastern

Iran has pressed on with a controversial Holocaust conference as international outrage mounted over its hosting of "revisionist" historians who cast doubt on the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday slammed the conference as "shocking beyond belief", a sentiment echoed by his Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

A host of Western "revisionists" who doubt the slaughter of six million Jews in World War II took place, including a former Ku Klux Klan leader and a Frenchman given a suspended jail term in October, have taken part.

Iran said that the aim of the conference was to find answers to questions about the Holocaust from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described it as a "myth" and cast doubt on the scale of the slaughter.

Papers delivered Tuesday by participants from countries ranging from Austria to Indonesia included "A Challenge to the Official Holocaust Story", and "Holocaust, the Achilles Heel of a Primordial Jewish Trojan".

"I think it is such a symbol of sectarianism and hatred towards people of another religion, I find it just unbelievable," said Blair. "I found that this conference that they had questioning the Holocaust is shocking beyond belief.

"If you're going to invite the former head of the Ku Klux Klan to a conference in Tehran which disputes the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, then what further evidence do you need to have that this regime is extreme?" said Blair.

Olmert led a chorus of angry condemnation from the Jewish state over the two-day meeting which started on Monday.

"The conference in Iran was sickening and shows the depths of the hatred," Olmert said, calling on the world "to disassociate itself from Iran and all the participants of the conference".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned "in the strongest terms" dismissals of the Holocaust by the "revisionist" historians. In its reaction to the conference, the Vatican described the Holocaust as an "appalling tragedy to which one cannot remain indifferent."

Some of the most notorious Western figures who have downplayed the scale of the Holocaust have been attending the event, including French professor Robert Faurisson and German-born Australian Fredrick Toeben.

The conference wrapped up in the early afternoon and all of the participants, who have showered the Iranian president with praise throughout the meeting, were bussed away for a private meeting with Ahmadinejad.

In Tehran, an assistant of Toeben, who maintains the existence of gas chambers is an "outright lie", tried to show his claim using a model of the Treblinka extermination camp the researcher had brought to the conference.

"There is no scientific proof to show that this place was an extermination camp. All that exists are the words of some people," said Richard Krege.

He claimed that only 5,000 people died in the camp, of disease. Most historians believe that at least 800,000 prisoners were murdered in the camp.

The conference is the latest brush with controversy for the Islamic republic, which is already facing UN sanctions for failing to agree to halt sensitive nuclear work.

Historians specialising in the Third Reich, basing their figures on original Nazi documents, generally believe around six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, although some estimates are slightly lower or higher. Hitler's regime also killed millions of non-Jews.

It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in a dozen European countries, including Germany and Austria.

Mainstream scholars of the Holocaust meanwhile held a counter gathering in Berlin on Monday to condemn the conference, entitled "Study of the Holocaust: A Global Perspective".

US academic Raul Hilberg, the author of "Destruction of the European Jews", which is widely considered one of the standard texts on the Holocaust, said he wanted to make "a statement" by attending the Berlin conference.

The European Jewish Congress "condemned in the strongest terms" the "negationist and revisionist" conference in Iran attended by Western figures it described as "pseudo-historians and intellectuals".

[DogByte6RER]

Here is the link I pulled the photos with historical captions from:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/holocaust/photoessay.htm

[Blue State Insurgent]

Queer Eye for the Fascist Guy.

[popdonnelly]

A gathering of obscene idiots.

[SolidWood]

Thanks, for the link. I might contact them, so they can correct the wrong date. I noticed some other minor misdescriptions aswell (for example German policemen described as soldiers etc.). Those are subtleties that go unnoticed, unless one studies and researches history (of WW2 and the Third Reich in particular) in all it's minor details...

[Alexander Rubin]

Shouldn't that date be 1943?

[muleskinner]

These nuts probably claim the photographs were photoshoped.

[Auntie Toots]

you said,""It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in a dozen European countries, including Germany and Austria." Now this is where I have a major problem."

.....I have the same problem as you do. And I also agree with your sentence..."if you have truth on your side, whst is your reason to criminalize questions and criticism?"

We should just let them run off at the mouth, better yet, let there be a serious world debate with both sides bringing forth their facts, and let it be done once and for all.

[DogByte6RER]

Yes, most likely the date should read 1945.

The pictures and text were pulled from this photo essay:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/holocaust/photoessay.htm

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT

..................

[Al Gator]

One of the best cures for the cornball wack jobs who say no plane hit the Pentagon, was to let them yak.

And yak they did. And then everyone laughed. Now they are gone. (well, almost)

Had we criminalized that fat slob michael mooron, he would be a saint today.

Criminalizing opinions is just really bad juju, wicked joss and all that. Should never be done.

[ctdonath2]

Ahmadinejad is figuring out who his friends are.
Take notes.

[colorado tanker]

Basically, he accused the U.S. of flouting international law and called on us to reaffirm our commitment to "democracy." It was an angry, mean-spirited speech calculated to insult the U.S. If Harry Truman had been alive and at that speech, I'm pretty sure he would have punched Kofi out.

[DogByte6RER]

Holocaust: The Camps

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/

[DogByte6RER]

Also, link to:

http://www.deathcamps.info/

[Exeter]

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned "in the strongest terms" dismissals of the Holocaust by the "revisionist" historians."

Even the damn Germans are admitting that the Holocaust wasn't a myth! What credence can the world give to a pack of anti-Semites, including an invited Klansman, compared to the people who did this foul deed?

[rmlew]

Last time I checked, the British were at war the the Nazis, while thousands of Muslims joined the SS.
Persia was renamed Iran, land of the Aryans, in the 1930's, by Pahlavi, who liked the Nazis.

[444Flyer]

This story isn't being given anywhere near the attention (if any at all) that the Michael Richard's incident did. It's a sickening and telling example of the uneducated and negligent press of our times vs. those that recorded the horrific details of the Holocaust. "Those who forget history..."

[Convert from ECUSA]

Beyond sick and beyond evil, just plain downright ugly and wicked! Amad-nut-job and his cohorts should meet the same fate as Haman, and it should be before Purim next year.

[Biggirl]

This sick conference does not suprise me. Sadly we are seeing the 1930's all over again.

[Gator113]

Well said!