Jean
Plantin, thirty-four years of age, unemployed and residing near
It
so happens that, in the first issues of "Akribeia," Jean Plantin
simply mentioned three revisionist publications whose sale, display, and
advertisement are forbidden by the interior ministry. He did not advertise
them.
On
13 January 1999, he was arrested at his home and taken to a police station in
Some
journalists then set about launching "the Plantin affair", mainly in
"Le Journal du dimanche" ("The Sunday Journal"), the local
press, and the Communist Party's "L'Humanité" of 21 April (p.
1, 6, 7) under the headline "Filière noire pour revue brune"
("A Brown Review's Black Path;" -- it should be noted in passing that
the cover of "Akribeia" is a vivid red hue).
These
newspapers revealed that Jean Plantin had in 1990 obtained a master's degree in
history for his paper entitled, "Paul Rassinier (1906-1967), socialiste,
pacifiste et révisionniste" ("Socialist, Pacifist and
Revisionist").
In
the following year he earned the prestigious "diplôme
d'études approfondies" ("diploma of advanced studies",
known as the "DEA"), with his thesis, "Les Epidémies de
typhus dans les camps de concentration nazis" ("The Typhus Epidemics
in the Nazi Concentration Camps"). Neither of the two works exhibited a
revisionist character. But suddenly, in 1999, certain organisations,
particularly Jewish ones, have made it known that they consider that fact to be
immaterial and that two professors (the first at the University of Lyon-III,
the second at the University of Lyon-II) who supervised J. Plantin's work, were
guilty of revisionism (of "negationism", as they derisively term it).
At
first, the professors who were implicated, Régis Ladous and Yves Lequin,
protested their good faith. Fallen prey to panic, both dodged their
responsibilities. R. Ladous, for his part, went so far as to say that, if he
had graded Plantin's thesis as "Très bien" (very good), it was
only to show his scorn for a job which, in his eyes, was, it seems,
"grotesque" (!)
Then,
the professors spontaneously tendered their resignations from their posts as
overseers of the "DEA" studies program. These resignations were immediately
accepted by the presidents of their respective universities.
Prof.
R. Ladous had previously "distinguished" himself on 29 April 1993 by
publicly endorsing the judicial repression imposed on his revisionist
colleague, Bernard Notin, (who, from that moment onward, has never been able to
resume his lecture program in economics at the University of Lyon-III).
As
for Y. Lequin, he presides over the committee of historians at Lyon's Centre
d'histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation ("Center
for the History of the Resistance to the Deportations"); he is also a
member of a commission recently established by the Lyon council to investigate
the wartime "despoilment of Jewish property".
The
local press has come out with a multitude of pieces on J. Plantin's trial, held
in
A
committee of historians and academics are to attempt to ascertain why the
The
authorities are making preparations for a one-day seminar in October 1999 to
look into that question. An international symposium on the problem of
"negationism" is to be held next year as well. As of now,
consideration is being given to the setting up of a system for vetting
prospective students at French universities, in order to prevent any person
suspected of revisionism from getting any degree whatever. The University of
Lyon-II has put Bernard Comte, a theology expert, in charge of drafting a
"detailed and exhaustive chronology of all the events, since the Faurisson
affair, which have, in one manner or another, put the university into contact
with negationism, whether by a showing of support or of condemnation".
The
judges of the
According
to media reports, it seems that another case against the young historian is in
the offing, this time for the contents of the latest issue (#4) of
"Akribeia." For its part, the University of Lyon-II board of trustees
has decided to initiate the procedure for the revocation of Jean Plantin's
"DEA" degree.
Yet,
since the thesis he wrote for this degree is no longer to be found in the
university's library, and since no-one, consequently, can say anything about
its substance, it is on the basis of "administrative technicalities"
that the revocation is to be sought! Such is the board's decision, in a vote of
30 to 0 in favor of the revocation, and eight abstaining.
...Contrary
to journalistic rumour, Jean Plantin has not been involved in historical
revisionism. He has striven, in "Akribeia," to be exact and
impartial. There is his crime; his sole crime.
In
Jean
Plantin is an intellectual, trained at the university in historical research.
He is conscientious, unassuming, unselfish; engrossed in a Benedictine-like
routine of labor. Bereft of all financial resources, unemployed, he decides one
day to launch a highly erudite history periodical. He takes note of the fact
that in
A
modest man, he is not one to try to create the conditions for an impossible
encounter. He will simply catalogue and discuss, amidst his other varied
studies, the bibliography and diverse research materials and publications, of
both the exterminationists and the revisionists. He will proceed with the
greatest possible impartiality. He will relate what he finds, in detail and
with a sometimes intimidating precision; in neutral, if not drab, language.
But
lightning will one day strike this adventurer in archives and libraries. There
suddenly appear groups and splinter-groups which are offended, choking with
rage and indignation. They complain to the university, the police, the courts.
The "evil foe" must be crushed. The jobless young man will lose, to
confiscation, what professional equipment he still possesses and the rich will
force him to borrow in order to pay them "compensation".
The
researcher will be forbidden to do research. The scholar, if ever he makes
another "slip", will be told to go immeditately to prison to serve a
six month sentence. His degrees will be revoked. Soon to be arranged will be
the ceremonies of atonement, ritual gatherings, crusades. Jean Plantin has had
a rough start. He is not yet through with the affair which bears his name.
1.
One might also cite the suspicion of revisionism of two Lyon historians:
Gérard Chauvy (because of his book Aubrac,
2.
It is not "since the beginning of the 1980s" that the
Afterword by Michael
A. Hoffman II
Repeatedly,
scandalous horror stories like the preceding, about which the loud-mouthed
"guardians of academic and intellectual freedom" such as the N.Y.
Times, Washington Post et al have almost nothing to report or editorialize upon,
but are content to suppress and cloak in the murkiness of their Jewish
hypocrisy and double-standards, hammer home the crucial utility of the U.S.
First Amendment. None of what happened to Jean Plantin could happen to any
revisionist or revisionist printing facility in
This
underscores the fact that a revisionist printing factory in the U.S., once
established, would have French and German departments, where foreign language
revisionist publications would be printed and mailed to tens of thousands of
subscribers and interested parties throughout Europe. How our enemies would
boil at that! The spectacle of their rabid foaming will be the sauce with which
we cook their goose.
Meanwhile
the "gloom and doom" lobby here in the U.S., paralyzed by Jewish-seeded
prophecies of imminent calamity and apocalypse, who cling to their soiled
security blanket of defeatism like toddling infants; who chant "it's too
late" and cower like whipped dogs in their caves and kennels, are put to
shame by the raw facts of the Plantin case.
The
undeniable reality is that we Americans still have First Amendment freedoms and
to enhance and protect those freedoms we must use them to the maximum. Now,
more than ever, we must pledge to build, in the congenial environs of
It
is illegal under French law to assist defendants in paying fines and damages
which have been ordered by the court. But it is legal to furnish financial aid to
Jean Plantin to recompense him for his lost computers and archives and who, in
his legal defense, has incurred heavy costs, and is likely to incur still more.
In order to come to his aid one may send him, by regular post, either a check,
money order or cash. An acknowledgement of receipt will be addressed to all
donors. Please inform him that you learned of his case through The Hoffman
Wire.
Jean
Plantin, 45/3, route
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