In terms of global impact, especially in France and the Arab-Muslin world, one of the most important revisionist works to appear in recent years is Les mythes fondateurs de la politique israélienne ("The Founding Myths of Israeli Policy"), a readable and well referenced work by noted French author and intellectual Roger Garaudy.

In a much-publicized case, a Paris court on February 27, 1998, fined Garaudy 240,000 francs ($40,000) for statements made in his 1996 book. The octogenarian scholar was found guilty of "denying crimes against humanity" by expressing skepticism of the Holocaust extermination story, and for "racist defamation" by citing the awesome Jewish role in the Western media. Garaudy, a convert to Islam, garnered considerable support in Arab and Muslim countries for his legal battle, where the case has been widely regarded as yet another example of the hypocrisy that prevails in Europe and the United States on issues involving Jewish and Zionist interests. (For more about Garaudy and his travails, see the March-April 1998 Journal, pp. 16-18.)

Garaudy's "Founding Myths" (reviewed in the March-April 1996 Journal, pp. 35-36) quickly appeared in several languages. Now a Japanese edition is available in a handsome, 400-page hardcover volume, with bibliography, source references and index. Responsible for this edition is revisionist activist Aiji Kimura, a Tokyo journalist who is the author of several books, including a critical treatment of the US-Japanese role in the Gulf War. In November 1994 he visited the IHR office in southern California, where he conducted a videotaped interview with Journal editor Mark Weber.

Attractive Booklet for Czech Readers

Aimed at a wide readership is a handsome, well illustrated, 52-page Czech-language booklet, Osvetim: fakta versus fikce ("Auschwitz: Facts versus Fiction"), by Rudolf Seidl. In spite of its title, it covers much more than Auschwitz. Packed with charts, diagrams and numerous good quality photographs, including several in full color, this punchy 1998 booklet is an effective introduction to the revisionist view of the Holocaust extermination story. It sells for 60 Czech koruny each, with bulk rates available. Order from: VHO, Postbus 60, 2600 Berchem 2, Belgium.

Ahead of His Time

The generally acknowledged founder of Holocaust revisionism was Paul Rassinier, a French educator and underground Resistance activist who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and interned until the end of the war in the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps. His courage and suffering were later recognized with France's highest decoration awarded for Resistance activities, and he was elected to the French National Assembly as a deputy of the Socialist Party (SFIO). His memoirs of wartime camp experiences, Passage de la Ligne ("Crossing the Line") and Le Mensonge d'Ulysse ("The Lie of Ulysses"), brought heated rebuke.

In 1950 the gifted French writer Albert Paraz provided a preface to an edition of Rassinier's "Ulysses' Lie." In this remarkable piece, Paraz courageously and elegantly identified with Rassinier's skepticism about the gas chamber story, even calling for an international commission of independent historians to thoroughly investigate this emotion-laden issue.

Paraz' 1950 preface, out of print for many years, is once again available in a booklet published in January 1999, Préface a Mensonge d'Ulysse de Paul Rassinier ("Preface to 'The Lies of Ulysses' by Paul Rassinier"). In foreword to this new edition, Robert Faurisson commends Paraz for the "audacity of his thinking and the freedom of his tone." Comparing him to Céline, Faurisson also praises Paraz for "his generosity, his panache, his style." This 60-page, soft cover booklet is available, for 80 francs each, from: Éditions Akribeia, 45/3 route de Vourles, 69230 St.-Genis-Laval, France.

Detailed Majdanek Study

At the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-46, Allied officials charged that the Germans had killed one and a half million people at the Majdanek concentration camp, at Lublin in Poland. In recent decades, though, Majdanek has been little more than a footnote to the Holocaust story, and today no serious historian accepts the once supposedly proven claims of hundreds of thousands of victims there. Moreover, detailed, scholarly information about the camp has been scarce.

To fill this gap, two of Europe's leading revisionist scholars -- Jürgen Graf of Switzerland and Carlo Mattogno of Italy -- have written KL Majdanek: Eine historische und technische Studie ("Majdanek Concentration Camp: A Historical and Technical Study"). This new detailed work is the fruit of two years of diligent archival work and intensive study of original documents from Eastern European archives. Among other issues, the authors examine and debunk the Majdanek "gas chambers" legend.

This soft cover, German-language work of 300 pages was published in 1998. It contains charts, diagrams, facsimile reproductions of original documents, and wartime aerial photographs. There are 30 photographs (including eight in color), as well as a bibliography, copious source references, and an index. It is available, for 45 German marks each, from the publisher: Castle Hill, P.O. Box 118, Hastings, E. Sussex, TN34 3ZQ, England - UK.

Auschwitz Central Construction Office

Italian scholar Carlo Mattogno has written a detailed study of the central SS construction office, or Zentralbauleitung, of the Auschwitz camp complex. This agency was responsible for all construction in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including the notorious crematory facilities (with their alleged extermination "gas chambers").

La "Zentralbauleitung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz," published in 1998, is based on long-suppressed German wartime documents, especially records seized by the Soviets in 1945 and hidden for decades in Moscow state archives.

About half of this 215-page soft cover work consists of facsimile reproductions of original documents, including work orders, labor lists, charts and diagrams. It contains source references and a name index. It is available from: Libreria Ar, largo Dogana Regia, 84121 Salerno, Italy.

German Booklet Aims at Mass Readership

Germany's leading Jewish community figure, Ignatz Bubis, has called on authorities to take legal measures against an effective, information-packed, 40-page revisionist booklet, Antwort Auf die Goldhagen- und Spielberglügen ("Answer to the Goldhagen and Spielberg Lies"). By July 1998, some 40,000 copies had been distributed in Germany and Austria, making it the most widely distributed German-language revisionist publication so far. It is now in its fourth edition.

Its clear, easily readable prose style, catchy illustrations and handy format (6 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches) make it well suited for a mass readership. It is available -- ten copies for 30 German marks -- from the publisher: VHO, Postfach 60, B-2600 Berchem 2, Belgium.

Nuremberg Study in French

Taking aim at well-entrenched myths about the Nuremberg trials is a recently published 125-page soft cover book by Mark Weber, La Face cachée de Nuremberg ("The Hidden Side of Nuremberg"). Abundantly illustrated, this is an adaptation, with much added material, of Weber's lengthy essay, "The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust," from the Summer 1992 Journal of Historical Review. This is a special 1998 issue of a new the French revisionist periodical. (See "'Alternative History' in France," in the March-April 1998 Journal, p. 30.) Selling for 125 francs each, this book is available from L'Autre Histoire, B.P. 3, 35134 Coesmes, France.

An Italian Examination of the 'Faurisson Case'

Italian author Cesare Saletta presents an overview of legal repression of Holocaust revisionism in various European countries, with special emphasis on the legal persecution of French scholars Robert Faurisson and Serge Thion, in a December 1997 booklet, Il Caso Faurisson e il Revisionismo Olocausto ("The Faurisson Case and Holocaust Revisionism").

This 135-page soft cover book (with index) includes essays by Faurisson and Thion, as well as the much-cited 1980 essay by Jewish-American scholar Noam Chomsky, in which he defends the free speech of Holocaust revisionists. By the same publisher is a 55-page companion booklet, La repressione legale del revisionismo e l'emergere di una questione ebraica ("The Legal Repression of Revisionism and the Rise of a Jewish Question"). Both are published by: Graphos, Campetto 4, 16123 Genova, Italy.

A New Look at the Gerstein 'Confession'

For many years the "confession" of SS officer Kurt Gerstein has been widely cited as proof for the existence of German wartime homicidal gas chambers. The first critical and scholarly examination of this postwar "testimony" was provided by French historian Henri Roques in a much-discussed 1986 doctoral dissertation. Striking at the roots of the Holocaust story, Roques concluded in his "thesis of Nantes" that not only were Gerstein's allegations of mass killings of Jews groundless, but prominent Holocaust historians have deliberately manipulated and falsified key parts of Gerstein's tortured testimony. Roques' exposé was published in English by the IHR as The 'Confessions' of Kurt Gerstein (available from the IHR for $9.50, postpaid).

Now Roques has expanded on his 1986 work with a complementary new work, Quand Alain Decaux reconte l'histoire du SS Kurt Gerstein ("When Alain Decaux recounts the history of SS [man] Kurt Gerstein"). The title of this recently published, French-language booklet refers to a work by the well-known French historian Alain Decaux. This bold 76-page booklet (with source references), written together with Vincent Reynouard, further nails the role of the Gerstein "testimony" in the Holocaust extermination legend.

Revisionist Writing from Spain

For some time now the most important revisionist scholar in Spain has been Enrique Aynat, an IHR Journal contributor and a member of this Journal's Editorial Advisory Committee. His publications include El Holocausto a Debate: Respuesta a César Vidal ("The Holocaust in Debate: a Response to César Vidal"), a 182-page booklet with index and source references, and Estudios sobre el 'Holocausto' ("'Holocaust' Studies"), a 175-page soft cover work.

A more recent publication is a 132-page, 1997 soft cover work, Estudios sobre Auschwitz ("Auschwitz Studies"), with charts, source references, and facsimile reproductions of some original documents. It includes a lengthy statistical examination by Aynat of data on the mortality of Jews deported from France to Auschwitz in 1942, as well as a detailed essay by Jean-Marie Boisdefeu on a wartime report about Auschwitz by Belgian Resistance figure Victor Martin. Estudios sobre Auschwitz is available from: Apdo. de Correos 12.083, 46080 Valencia, Spain.

Affirmation, Not Denial

A reminder: Revisionists do not deny the genocide and the gas chambers. That is a misconception. Galileo didn't deny that the earth was stationary; he affirmed, at the conclusion of his research, that the earth was not stationary, but that it rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun. In the same way, the revisionists, after concluding their own research, affirm that there was no genocide and no gas chambers, and that the "final solution of the Jewish question" consisted of the removal of the Jews from Europe -- by emigration if possible, and by deportation if necessary.

The revisionists strive to establish what happened; they are positive, while the exterminationists doggedly continue to tell us about things which didn't happen: their work is negative.

The revisionists stand for the reconciliation of the antagonists in the recognition of what really happened.