20th Anniversary of
the Great Holocaust Trial
by Michael A. Hoffman
II
Copyright 2005 by
revisionisthistory.org
January
7, 2005 marks the 20th anniversary of what came to be known throughout the
world as "The Great Holocaust Trial" thanks chiefly to the drive,
determination, courage and vision of one man, Ernst Zundel, supported by those
he inspired.
In
1985 Zundel was a German immigrant residing in
Zundel
viewed the "Six million" story as a form of mental genocide against
the German people; ostensibly a noble tale of the epoch struggle for human
rights that in actuality was a form of devious hate propaganda, leveling every
conceivable blood libel at the Germans and branding them with the Mark of Cain.
Having survived the Allied firebombing of his native city of
For
this commendable enterprise, Zundel had his mailing privileges revoked by the
Canadian government in 1983, forcing him to open a post office box in Buffalo,
New York and send a messenger to commute hundreds of miles just to receive
mail. In 1985 he was charged under an archaic "False News" provision
of an old Edwardian municipal code, for having published the pamphlet "Did
Six Million Really Die?" He faced two years in prison if convicted.
In
reponse Zundel put the so-called "Holocaust" itself on trial, hiring
a little-known maverick lawyer from
Zundel's
defense was initially regarded by the press and public as preposterous.
"How can anyone deny the 'Holocaust?" was the incredulous response to
the news that Zundel would vigorously defend himself and the free speech rights
of all Canadians. The trial was expected to be a quick and ignominious rout of
Zundel and his motley crew.
How
wrong the odds-makers were! For the first time in history the holy
"survivors" finally had to submit their "testimony" to
scrutiny, to the rules of evidence and cross-examination, something that has
never happened before or since. Seated in the press gallery, I watched as my
colleagues of the fourth estate grew ever more surprised and shocked at the
amazing admissions Christie and Faurisson elicited from the
"eyewitnesses" to the gas chambers. TV reporters like Claud Adams and
journalists from the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail produced footage and headlines
that turned
Canadian
readers and viewers learned that there was no scientific evidence for homicidal
gas chambers, that homicidal gassings (as opposed to the German use of Zyklon B
as a life-saving prophylactic against the deadly typhus louse), were a rumor
that the inmates heard but never actually witnessed for themselves--these were
statements obtained by Mr. Christie from the prosecution's own vaunted
Auschwitz eyewitnesses!
In
March of 1985 Zundel was convicted by a cowardly jury that had followed the
prejudicial advisories of a bent judge; but the conviction was reversed on
appeal and Zundel went to trial again in 1988, eventually winning a Supreme
Court decision for free speech in
The
1988 trial is more well known in revisionist circles. Zundel was famous by then
and the appearance of Fred "Dr. Death" Leuchter, the designer of the
US Prison system's execution apparatus, as an expert defense witness who tested
purported execution "gas chambers" on-site in
Still,
for this reporter, the 1985 trial has the greatest significance. Having been
badly burned the first time around (Dr. Raul Hilberg, the preeminent historian
of the Six Million admitted on the witness stand in the first trial that there
was no scientific evidence for gassings--"I'm at a loss" he said when
asked to produce evidence), the Judaic establishment kept all their infallible
"Holocaust" saints and martyrs away from the second trial. Yet it is
upon the word of these supposedly unimpeachable "eyewitnesses" that
the tale hangs and it was in the first trial that they were hanged by their own
lies and misprision. It was poetic justice that this was done in the full glare
of the publicity they had marshaled in the expectation of witnessing Zundel's
disgrace.
20
years ago today I left
On
January 7, 1985, this writer was privileged to walk directly behind Zundel and
Christie, through a gauntlet of JDL terrorists and into the courthouse where I
would report the trial for eight weeks, first in the pages of the Washington
D.C. newspaper "Spotlight," and later in a book published by the
Institute for Historical Review, "The Great Holocaust Trial" (now out
of print).
It
is difficult to fathom that twenty years later Ernst Zundel is completing his
twenty-third month of solitary confinement in
The
pacifist who entered Canada because it had no conscription law, the activist
who was repeatedly denounced as a reactionary and a wimp by neo-Nazi and Aryan
extremists because he opposed armed resistance of any kind, now rots in a tiny
cell without so much as a pillow, a pen or a desk, purely for reasons of
Talmudic revenge of the most primitive and tribal nature.
This
is what the "war on terror" is all about: the recrudescence of the
prerogatives of dictatorship for the sake of eliminating all those who dissent,
as was done to Cicero after he protested the destruction of the Roman Republic
and the tyrants who replaced it with an empire, for which his hands and head
were nailed to the Senate podium. Our modern day Ceasars however, have no such
candor. They nail men like Zundel in secrecy and darkness and call it human
rights and fighting terror.
But
the Great Holocaust Trial was not fought in vain and if there is a history of
human rights worth writing, Ernst Zundel will be on page one of any authentic
compendium. History teaches that you can't kill ideas with prisons and gulags
and that as long as men like Zundel continue to keep their faith in the power
of the truth, others will come forward to raise the banner. This is how our
rights were gained in the first place and will be secured in the future.
On
January 7 light a candle, literally or in your heart, for all the men and women
throughout the centuries who have given their lives for freedom, among whom we
number the unforgettable Mr. Zundel.
Ernst Zundel was keelhauled to
Write to: Ernst Zundel , JVA -
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Holocaust Trial" a 65 minute documentary film about the 1985 trial, edited
by Michael Hoffman from more than 100 hours of TV news coverage, is
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