ESSAY

THE OTHER HISTORY
By: Arni Haraldsson

In various countries in Europe, as
well, in North America, during 1973,
there appeared in journals and alter-
native media, certain claims stating
that history needs to be revised to
counteract the ‘‘exterminationist ver-
sion’”’ of history. Thus some revi-
sionists (publishing anonymously at
first), have claimed that ‘the
Holocaust: never took place’ — Ar-
thur Butz, an American writer and a
known figure in the revisionist trend,
published in 1976 “The Hoax of the
XXth Century’. Prior to this there
had been another publication of an
anonymous book, “The Myth of the
Six Million’. On December 28, 1978,
the French newspaper ‘Le Monde’
published an article by one, Robert
Faurisson. This article led to heated
debates in the press and classroom
disruptions at the University of
Lyon, and finally, to the suspension
of Faurisson’s teaching post. He had
held the position of professor of
history. Faurisson’s arguments may
well stem from Darquier de
Pellepoix, who was the former Com-
missioner of Jewish Affairs during
the Vichey regime. It was de
Pellepoix, along with the occupyig
Huns, that ultimately determined the
fate of France’s Jews. In 1978, while
in exile, de Pellepoix declared in
Express (4/11/78), ‘that only lice
had ever been gassed at Auschwitz’
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There was a convention of revi-
sionist historians in California, in
1979. A prize of $50,000 was offered
to whomever could provide a ‘‘firm’’
proof of the existence of gas
chambers! The technique of these
revisionists is to — first of all — pre-
sent a demonstrative contradiction of
facts. Then, deny all related facts,
simply because of the existence of the
initial contradiction. This group of
revisionist writers are currently using
“The Journal of Historical Review’ to
propagate their causes. Where these
revisionists fail, is that they make no
further attempt to research informa-
tion and facts that could help to ex-
plain the initial contradiction.
Therefore Faurisson fails, for he
makes no attempt to research the
disruptions in the German
bureaucratic practices at the later
stage of the war. And it is from this
later stage, that he ‘draws’ most of his

arguments from. As well, the revi-
sionists argue that after the war, the
accounts of the survivors cannot be
trusted for ‘serious’ historical work
and reconstruction. They also claim
that the testimonies of the Huns can-
not be trusted, because, that at the
Nuremberg trials they were subject to
pressure from Allied prosecutors who
wanted testimonies that
demonstrated the enormity and hor-
ror of the genocide for propaganda
purposes.

Recently the Holocaust has begun
to lose its awesome, almost sacred
status as the ultimate existential hor-
ror. Hollywood and_ the
“preconceptualized-commodity-
formula’ have ‘injected’ the issue into
a marketable ‘‘in’’ topic. Not long
ago, a number of North American
academics signed a petition in favor
of Faurisson’s right to continue his
research and freely exercise his legal
rights. here, the ultimate contradic-
tion appears, for among the first
signatures was that of Noam Chom-
sky, a renowned linguist and a
brilliant political critic, who’s name
appeared on Richard Nixon’s
“enemies list’’?. Why would Chom-
sky submit his name to the lunacy of
Faurisson? The answer lies Chom-
sky’s life-long work, and_ his
signature is the key to the underlying
motives of Faurisson’s real claim.

Chomsky, along with Edward
Herman, in their two-volume ‘The
Political Economy of Human
Rights’, stated that distortions occur
all the time when, for example, cer-
tain genocides are unreported
because of vested political or
economical interests. In Cambodia,
for example, Chomsky questioned
the accuracy of official figures about
the death tolls from fighting, starva-
tion and genocide. During October
1979, when the Western media focus-
ed intensely on Cambodia. On Oc-
tober 6, the U.S. State Department
(AFP, Le Monde) gave what Chom-
sky considered to be an accurate
casualty estimate of 1.2 million
deaths since 1975. But within 6 days
this figure became 4 million (Anten-
na 2, TV, October 12), and the
following day (Liberation, October
13), the initial figure ended at 5
million. Chomsky, along with other
theorists and critics, has found dif-
ficulties in attempting to restore
realistic figures without being accus-
ed of being on the side of Pol Pot and
the Khmer Rouge. Thus Chomsky
has said that the public has no access
to ‘historical’ truth, but only to
‘political’ truth.

One of the people in support of
Faurisson is Serge Thion, a
sociologist from the Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique and
belonging to the French left. Thion
took up Faurisson’s ideas, as did
others, as part of an overall strategy
of systematic skepticism concerning
the reliability of historical data, and
in particular, to contradict the ‘‘ex-
terminationist’’ historians. So that
Thion and the others are attempting
to construct a general case about
historical mystifications, which will
go beyond the specific data of events;
to give one complete, dramatic exam-
ple that will capture public imagina-
tion, and help demonstrate the validi-
ty of the thesis of the construciton of
historical myths. Thion and the
French left have continuously been
torn on the issue concerning Israel.
The French left has always defended
the Arab world, expecially since the
Algerian war, and it therefore sup-
ports the Palestinian cause. During
the 60’s and 70’s, the wars in the
Middle East brought out tormented
debates and contradictory feelings of
guilt (among the left). Perhaps this
ambivalence toward Israel’s role,
concerning these conflicts, is because
the very existence of Israel today is
closely related to the Holocaust; for
contemporary Jewish history is deep-
ly rooted in Auschwitz as the symbol
of the destruction of the Jewish peo-
ple during the war. So that if the
Holocaust never took place, as
Faurisson is suggesting, then the
Jewish people’s claim, that Israel be
the home of Jewish survivors, would
become irrelevant.

Chomsky and Thion are well
aware of the absolute lunacy of
Faurisson’s claims (as is Faurisson
himself), so that the question of 6
million, 5, 4 or 3 is meaningless.
Chomsky’s signature, his influence
and Thion’s support of Faurisson is
not to support Faurisson’s claim, but
rather, to support research and the
freedom to exercise one’s legal rights.
But the underlying language, intert-
wined within this ‘freedom to exer-
cise’ is politics and power. The
politics of the Palestinian issue, the
future claim to the capital commodity
of the Middle East, and ultimately,
the ‘word’ of the Jewish people.
within the ‘political field’ this
strategy is the ingenious method of
politics, power and influence; that
takes no consideration of the well be-
ing of people. So that one’s existence
is of less importance than are outside
circumstances and influences beyond

one’s control!
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