Geschrieben
von Bradley R. Smith
|
Monday,
7. July 2008 From: bernd.stieff From: Klaus W.
Friebe |
FRONTPAGE_NO_TRANSLATION_AVAILABLE Dear
Professor Dershowitz: I
watched you speak (thanks to YouTube)
on 04 May at the symposium titled “Defending Truth: Legal and Moral
Imperatives of Holocaust Denial.” I understand that the event was
organized by the U. of Baltimore School of Law and the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust
Studies. I
agree with you that questions about the Holocaust should be open to the
“marketplace of ideas.” Since February I have been asking academics to
provide me with the name of “one person, with proof, who was killed in a
gas chamber at Since
then I have asked hundreds of academics that one question. The question
does [not] claim that the gas chambers did not exist, and does not make a
claim that the “Holocaust” did not happen. It is a very simple, direct
question. To date, not one academic has provided me with such a name, and
none has attempted to do so. For
example, I have written the Director of one of the agencies that sponsored
the symposium where you spoke, Dr. Paul Shapiro, director of the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advance
Holocaust Studies. Could he provide me with the name of “one person, with
proof …” He has maintained the same discreet silence in response to this
simple inquiry that most all others have used to – how shall I put it – to
perhaps evade the question. In
your talk at the U. Baltimore symposium you suggest that Holocaust minimizers like Hilberg,
Chomsky, and Finkelstein are more difficult to deal with because, unlike
straight out “deniers,” their writings are not based on “the existence or
non-existence of gas chambers.” You ask, “Why are gas chambers so
important?” And you respond to your question by saying: “If there were gas
chambers, everything else from the [Holocaust] narrative follows.” The
implication is, if there were no gas chambers, everything else in the
Holocaust narrative would “falter.” I think you are right about
this. In
your talk you speak movingly, and I believe sincerely, about the
“importance” of the mass murder of Jewish children in the genocide of the
Jews. You argue that “the children had to be killed first” because they
were “the genetic future of the Jewish people.” And: “They were the genes.
That was the genocide.” Professor
Dershowitz: can you provide the name, with
proof, of one Jewish child who was killed in a gas chamber at
Professor
Dershowitz: do you believe it is morally right
for academics to forward the charge against Germans of having murdered a
million or so civilians in gas chambers at Auschwitz, and at the same time
act out the role of “bystanders” by refusing to commit themselves to
providing the name of one person – one child or one adult, with proof –
who was murdered in one of those rooms? Thank
you for your time. Bradley
R. Smith NOTE:
I will copy this letter to some of your colleagues at
Related
Articles: Source:
Bradley Smith’s Blog |