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Pierre Vidal-Naquet: Theses on Revisionism (Notes)

  1. I thank all those who have helped me in the preparation and the publication of this study, in particular P. Moreau, a conoisseur of the German extreme right; J. Tarnero; P. A. Taguieff; D. Fourgous, J. Svenbro; S. Krakowski; A. J. Mayer; and R. Halevi. Since this text is part of a volume in the "Hautes Etudes" collection, L'Allemagne nazie et le génocide des juifs (Gallimard and Seuil, 1985), references to other studies in that volume are to its American edition, Unanswered Questions.
  2. Cf. H. Dutrait-Crozon, Joseph Reinach Historien: Révision de l'histoire de l'affaire Dreyfus, preface by C. Maurras (Paris: A. Savaète, 1905).
  3. See the space accorded to him in K. Stimley, 1981 Revisionist Bibliography: A Select Bibliography of Revisionist Books Dealing With the Two Wars and Their Aftermaths (Torrance, Calif.: Institute for Historical Review, 1980). See also H. Barnes, Revisionism: A Key to Peace and Other Essays, preface by J. J. Martin (San Francisco: Cato Institute, 1980).
  4. See, for example, his preface to L. Hamilton Jenks, Our Cuban Colony (New York: Vanguard Press, 1928).
  5. See the classic work of Lord A. Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time. (New York: Dutton, 1928).
  6. W. Roscoe Thayer, Volleys from a Non-Combatant (New York: Doubleday, 1919).
  7. Letter reprinted in Le Mouvement social, January-March 1982, pp. 101-102; I thank Madeleine Rebérioux for having brought this text to my attention.
  8. Text reprinted in American Historical Review, April 1951, pp. 711-712; cf. H. E. Barnes, Revisionism, p. 131.
  9. The Genesis of the World War (New York: Knopf, 1929).
  10. Ibid., p. 306.
  11. Un débat historique: 1914. Le problème des origines de la guerre (Paris: Rieder, 1933), p. 224.
  12. Genesis of the World War, pp. xi-xii, 103, 333-335.
  13. One could proliferate references; see, for example, the republication by La Vieille Taupe, the principal organ of French revisionism, of Bernard Lazare's book, L'Antisémitisme: son histoire et ses causes (Paris: Editions de la Différence, 1982), or the pamphlet by the German Jewish revisionist J. G. Burg entitled, with all due calm, J'accuse (Ich klage an), 2d ed. (Munich: Ederer, 1982), and, by the same author, Zionnazi Zenzur in der B. R. D. (Munich: Ederer, 1980), pp. 48-49.
  14. See "Antisemitism" in The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968).
  15. In America and in France; needless to say, German revisionists recruited for the most part among extreme right-wing neo-Nazis have no interest in "reviewing" or "revising" the German nationalist version of the First World War!
  16. Such is the title of Butz's book, one of the bibles of "revisionism," The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.
  17. Concerning Rassinier, see "A Paper Eichmann," supra, pp. 00-00. J.-G. Cohn-Bendit and several of his friends have expressed their views in Intolérable intolérance (Paris: Editions de la Différence, 1982).
  18. A. Finkielkraut, L'Avenir d'une négation: Réflexion sur la question du génocide (Paris: Seuil, 1982), p. 121. In contemporary American revisionism, references to the war of 1914-1918 serve as a convenient mask donned by what is essentially an anti-Semitic propaganda effort; see, for example, in Journal of Historical Review I(2) (1980), the reproduction of a chapter of A. Ponsonby's book cited in note 5. I remind the reader that that review is the periodical of the American revisionist sect.
  19. Cf. H. E. Barnes, Revisionism, p. 16, in which Rassinier is quoted along with A. J. P. Taylor, Maurice Bardèche, Alfred Fabre-Luce, and a few others. But he alone is deemed worthy of the epithet "courageous."
  20. See "A Paper Eichmann," supra, pp. 00-00, and G. Wellers' volume, Les Chambres à gaz ont existé (Paris: Gallimard, 1981); the recent publication by R. Faurisson of a brochure entitled "Réponse à Pierre Vidal-Naquet" (Paris: Vieille Taupe, 1982) does not call for any further discussion on my part. I shall merely note that the text attributed to me in the preface by P. Guillaume is not mine. That error was rectified in a subsequent edition and replaced by other lies.
  21. "The conclusion precedes the evidence"; I borrow the formula from an unpublished text by J. C. Milner. Moreover, it should be recalled that in speaking of a "total lie," I do not mean --through a totalitarian inversion-- to affirm that all that the "revisionists" write, in its slightest details, is false. It is the whole which constitutes a mendacious system.
  22. Arendt, Totalitarianism, p. 30.
  23. The Terrible Secret (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980); see as well Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (London and New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), which is more detailed and extends over a longer time span, but less acute. For a case of concrete testimony among many others, see E. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Needless to say, Laqueur's book was immediately exploited in a revisionist sense: if the Allies themselves did not believe, it was because there was nothing to believe; see the articles by R. Faurisson and P. Guillaume in Jeune Nation solidariste, December 1981.
  24. M. Gilbert, Auschwitz, p. 190, and above all R. graham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), II:708-724, 1109-1112.
  25. Ibid., pp. 1095-1120.
  26. Both expressions --at times simultaneously-- are to be found in revisionist literature. Cf., for example, Butz, The Hoax, particularly, pp. 53-100; R. Faurisson, Le Monde, December 29, 1978 (reprinted in S. Thion, Vérité, pp. 104-105); W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos: Legende oder Wirklichkeit? (Tübingen: Grabert, 1979), pp. 146-151; a French "adaptation" of this work exists under the title Le Mythe d'Auschwitz (Paris: La Vieille Taupe, 1986).
  27. The case of the myths accompanying the great slaughter is similar to that of the religious phenomena which followed in its wake, and which by no means undermine its existence. This elementary truth has eluded the anthropologist J.-L. Tristani; see his "Supplique à MM. Ies magistrats de la cour d'appel de Paris," in Intolérable intolérance pp. 161-172, a text, moreover, which is in no way anti-Semitic, but rather lacking in intellectual elaboration.
  28. F. H. Hinsley, ea., British Intelligence in the Second World War (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1981), II:673.
  29. N. Blumental, Dokumenty Materialy z Czasow Okupacji Niemieckiej w Polsce, i Obozy (Lodz, 1946), p. 118.
  30. The Terrible Secret, pp. 97-98; it is discussed by revisionist authors, for example, Butz, The Hoax, pp. 60-62.
  31. M. Broszat, "Hitler und die Genesis der Endlösung," Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, XXV, 1977, pp. 729-775 (English translation in Yad Vashem Studies, XIII, 1979, pp. 73-125); C. Browning, "Eine Antwort auf Martin Broszats Theses zur Genesis der Endlösung," ibid., XXIX, pp. 97-109; see, by the same author, "The Decision Concerning the Final Solution," in Unanswered Questions, pp. 96-118; this is, in my opinion, the most rigorous study of the subject.
  32. D. Irving, Hitler's War (New York: Viking, 1977).
  33. The references may be found supra (chapter 1, n. 67), to which should be added, insofar as Eichmann is concerned, a crucial document, the manuscript he composed in Argentina and which was published by a neo-Nazi revisionist, Dr. R. Aschenauer, Ich Adolf Eichmann: Ein Historischer Zeugenbericht (Leon) am Starnbergersee: Druffel Verlag, 1980), p. 178. Despite his categorical affirmation, which was written prior to his capture, his publisher nonetheless is capable of writing without any loss of composure that Eichmann is alluding to a nonexistent order (ibid., p. 178, note). I note a slight discrepancy between Eichmann's manuscript and the version told at Jerusalem: the conversation with Heydrich takes place at the end of 1941 in the first case, at the end of the summer in the second (Eichmann par Eichmann, p. 110).
  34. See, for example, H. Härtle, Freispruch für Deutschland (Gottingen: Schütz Verlag, 1968), pp. 201-204; Burg, Zionnazi Zensur in der BRD, pp. 173-176, uses the existence of monetary and postal institutions in the ghettos of Lodz and Theresienstadt to demonstrate that all was normal.
  35. I had this opportunity at the beginning of April 1982, in the Yad Vashem library in Jerusalem.
  36. The record seems to be held by R. E. Harwood (the pseudonym of the British neo-Nazi R. Verrall) in his famous booklet, Did Six Million Really Die? (Richmond, 1979), a minor monument of imaginary erudition. Several indications of the repercussions of that publication in England are to be found in Gill Seidel's book, The Holocaust Denial (Leeds: Beyond the Pale Collective, 1986).
  37. The Institute for Historical Review, located in Torrance, California, which publishes, in addition to the journal bearing its name, a whole series of works.
  38. One of the most precise studies of that International is by P. A. Taguieff, "L'héritage nazi," Nouveaux Cahiers 64 (Spring 1981):3-22.
  39. I borrow this information as well as other items from the biography of the individual published in the Journal of Historical Review I(2) (1980):187; I have also made use of indications furnished by J. Jakubowski in Expressen (Stockholm) of July 17, 1981.
  40. Its first issue was the object of a 1979 subscription campaign among members of the American Historical Association.
  41. I have before me an issue published in 1981. Glued to the first page are a few strands of hair with the caption: "Please accept this hair of a gassed victim."
  42. L. Marschalko, The World Conquerors: The Real War Criminals, translated from the Hungarian by A. Suranyi (London: Joseph Sueli, 1958; reprt. New York: Christian Book Club, 1978). This remarkable book was revealed to me by J. C. Milner. A typical example of its scholarship: the Jewish nationalist newspaper Shem, published clandestinely in France, is said to have explained, on July 8, 1944, that conditions in the camps were on the whole good and that children between two and five years old went to kindergarten classes in Berlin (p. 115). One of the French sources mentioned is Maurice Bardèche.
  43. In Intolérable intolérance, La Vieille Taupe thus published, along with texts that are inept but in no way anti-Semitic, a study by Vincent Monteil which, in its anti-Zionism, is fundamentally anti-Semitic.
  44. Cf. Le Monde, June 2, 1982, quoting M. Bougenaa Amara from L'Opinion (Rabat), the periodical of Istiqlal: "Nazism is a creation of Zionism. The historical reality of the concentration camps remains to be authenticated. Doubts linger as to their very existence."
  45. The most curious book on this theme that I know of is by Hussein Ahmad, Palästina meine Heimat: Zionismus--Weltkind der Völker (Frankfurt: Bierbaum Verlag, 1975). It combines every form of anti- Semitism and revisionism.
  46. See, for example, in Revue d'études palestiniennes 1 (Fall 1981), M. Rodinson, "Quelques idées simples sur l'antisémitisme," pp. 5-21, which denounces (p. 17) Arab use of the classics of anti-Semitism; these analyses strike me as far more pertinent than the maximalist ones undertaken by B. Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites (New York: Norton, 1986).
  47. The best known case is that of J. G. Burg (Ginzburg), who knew Europe under Hitler and Stalin, then Israel, before settling in Germany. His autobiography, Schuld und Schicksal (1962), 6th ed. (Oldendorf: K. W. Schütz ver. K. G. Preuss, 1979), moreover, is interesting and only marginally revisionist. Its subtitle may be translated as: "The Jews of Europe Between Executioners and Hypocrites." He has since slid toward revisionism and German nationalism. See, in addition to the books already mentioned, Maïdanek in alle Ewigkeit? (Munich: Ederer, 1979 [banned]); Sündenbocke, Grossangriffe des Zionismus auf Papst Pius XII und auf die deutschen Regierungen 4th ed. (Munich: Ederer, 1980), books published by a specialty house. Burg has also published a collection of Jewish tales, Jüdische Anekdotiade (Munich: Ederer, 1970).
  48. The most prolific author in this vein is Erich Kern, author of Meineid gegen Deutschland (2d ea., 1971) and Die Tragödie der Juden (1979), both published by Schütz, a specialized subdivision of Preussisch Oldendorf. The French reader will note with interest the praise heaped on Robert Faurisson in the latter volume, pp. 289-299. One anthology has the interest of presenting ten authors (including the Englishman, D. Irving) with their biographies: Verrat und Widerstand im Dritten Reich (Coburg: Nation Europa, 1978). Note finally the works of U. Walendy, a specialist in photographs altered for propaganda purposes --there were some-- as may be seen in the first issue of the Journal of Historical Review I(1) (1980):59-68. His books include Wahrheit für Deutschland 3d ed. (Vlotho-am-Weser: Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, 1976); and Auschwitz im 1. G. Farben Prozess (Vlotho-am-Weser: Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, 1981).
  49. See, for example, E. Kern, Die Tragödie der Juden, p. 83; W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos, pp. 82-85, with references to The American Hebrew (New York) of May 24,1934 and The Youngstown Jewish Times (Ohio) of April 16, 1936. They could also have mentioned The Daily Express of March 24,1933.
  50. See for example W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos, p. 82, which makes reference, p. 395, n. 103, to all the revisionist authors (of whom the first was French, Rassinier) who have used the same document.
  51. "Les redresseurs de morts" in Les Temps modernes, June 1980, pp.  2150-2211; S. Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (New York: Norton, 1960).
  52. For example, W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos, pp. 28-65; E. Kern, Die Tragödie der Juden, pp. 122-133; Butz, The Hoax, pp. 211-214, retains only the second interpretation.
  53. I have supplied the principal references in "A Paper Eichmann" supra, pp. 22, 41-42.
  54. W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos, p. 94, quoting and commenting on the Poznan speech of October 6, 1943. But the entirety of the author's "demonstration," pp. 89-103, could be adduced. One might also mention a page worth anthologizing about the "braggart" Himm ler in a pamphlet of the Parisian extreme left, "De l'exploitation dans les camps à l'exploitation des camps," supplement to no. 3 of La Guerre sociale, Paris, May 1981, pp. 27-28; add as well R. Faurisson, Réponse, pp. 14-17.
  55. One might refer at this point to a number of Rassinier's works, for example, Le Drame des Juifs européens, pp. 79-91, and I have already mentioned L. Marschalko's astonishing book, but the masterpiece in the field is H. Härtle's work, Freispruch für Deutschland, see above all pp. 204-274.
  56. Hitler's War, pp. 332 and 393. This alleged order is in fact the result of a minor intellectual hoax which has been denounced by both M. Broszat, "Hitler und die Genesis," p. 760, and G. Sereny and L. Chester, Sunday Times, July 10, 1977. It is a question of a telephone call from Himmler to Heydrich, emanating from the Führer's headquarters on November 30,1941, on the subject of a specific convoy of Jews from Berlin, and the order was not to exterminate (keine Liquidierung) specific convoy.
  57. See the crucial testimony of H. J. Klein, La Mort mercenaire, preface by D. Cohn-Bendit (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980).
  58. I was wrong to cite this text (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 15, 1972) following the interpretation it received from J. Tarnero (Nouveaux Cahiers 64 [Spring 1981]:28) and many others. My Italian friend and critic D. Lanza has drawn attention to the error; see my "clarification" in Quaderni di Storia 25 (January-June 1987):159-160.
  59. Precise and verifiable information about this lobby, which publishes the weekly Spotlight (similar in format to the French Minute, but even more directly racist), may be found in Facts (an organ of B'nai B'rith) 26(5) (June 1980): 1 and 2; see as well, concerning certain recent episodes in the life of the Institute for Historical Review, R. Chandler, in the San Franciso Chronicle of May 5, 1981. W. A. Carto chaired the 1981 revisionist conference; see his contribution, "On the Uses of History," Journal of Historical Review III(1) (1982) :27-30.
  60. There are debates in the United States about the more or less "libertarian" character of the revisionists and particularly of H. E. Barnes and his heirs; see the letters published in the Village Voice of July 1, 1981
  61. See, for example, A. Rabinbach, "Anti-Semitism Reconsidered," New German Critique 21 (Autumn 1980):129-141, particularly p. 141, n. 21.
  62. A full-blown polemic appeared in the press in 1981: see, for example, the articles in Svenska Daghladet on March 5, 1981, and Expressen on April 13, 1981, articles to which I myself responded Expressen on July 16-17, 1981), which prompted additional articles by Myrdal (Expressen on July 18-19, 1981); one of Myrdal's texts, an attack against French intellectuals and their role in the Faurisson affair, was collected in his book Dussinet fulls Skrifställining 12 (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1982), pp. 221-229; in this text, J. Myrdal, however, does not address the fundamental issue; there is material favorable to Faurisson in Tidskrift for Folkets Rättigheter, I, 1982.
  63. Several indications in "A Paper Eichmann," supra, pp. 55-56, and above all Bennett's own comments on his action and the polemics it elicited, Journal of Historical Review I(2) (1980):115-120, "In the Matter of Robert Faurisson."
  64. R. Faurisson had given an interview to Storia Illustrata, 261, August 1979, republished and corrected in S. Thion, Vérité, pp. 171- 212; since then, Italian revisionism has developed around two individuals: a disciple of Rassinier, Cesare Saletta, a member or sympathizer of the Gruppo communista internationalista autonoma, the author of a brochure entitled Il Caso Rassinier (1981) as well as of two others directed at the author of these pages, L'onestà polemica del Signor Vidal-Naquet and In margine ad tua recensione (1985 and 1986), both published by the author; and an avowed fascist, Carlo Mattogno, whose principal works have been published by Sentinella d'ltalia. Both authors, moreover, develop the same themes, and it was the fascist author which La Vieille Taupe opted to publish in the first issue of Annales d'histoire révisionniste (Spring 1987), "Le mythe de l'extermination des Juifs: Introduction historico-bibliographique à l'historiographie révisionniste," pp. 15-107.
  65. Mémoire en défense.
  66. Lothar Baier, "Die Weisswäscher von Auschwitz: Robert Faurisson und seine Genossen," Transatlantik, July 1981, pp. 14-26; Paul L. Berman, "Gas Chamber Games: Crackpot History and the Right to Lie," Village Voice, July 10,1981; L. Dawidowicz's article, "Lies About the Holocaust," Commentary, December 1980, pp. 31-37, is more international but also concludes with references to France.
  67. "Never did Hitler order or accept that anyone be killed for reason of his race or his religion": that formula made Faurisson famous and was disseminated, it seems, in 1978. In 1974, the (neo-Nazi) revisionist W. D. Rothe ended his book Die Endlösung der Judenfrage (Frankfurt: E. Bierman) by affirming: "class es nicht einen einzigen Juden gegeben hat, der mit Wissen und Billigung der Regierung des Dritten Reiches, des damaligen Führers Adolf Hitler oder gar des Deutsches Volkes, umgebracht worden wäre, well er Jude war."
  68. Even though such trials do occur in the United States (without much publicity); see infra, p. 138.
  69. In the previously mentioned volume, Vérité.
  70. See, for example, in the Journal of Historical Review I(2) (1980):153-162, the exchange of letters between various revisionists and the editors of the New Statesman of London. I have it from G. Sereny that the highest moral and juridical authority of the English press debated the question and decided against a right to respond.
  71. The Faurisson affair really began with the publication in Le Monde of December 29, 1978 of an article by Faurisson, followed by a response by G. Wellers. To be sure, Le Monde came out clearly against Faurisson, but one could read, for example, in the issue of June 30, 1981, concerning a trial, an article by C. Colombani entitled "Des universitaires s'affrontent sur le cas Faurisson [Academics confront each other over the Faurisson case]." The discussion was more intense in Libération (I participated in an interview with Didier Eribon, January 24-25, 1981); it appeared to come to a close in the July 11-12 issue with an article by F. Paul-Boncour entitled "Pour en finir avec l'affaire Faurisson," but resurfaced on several occasions, the last being the publication of two letters to the editor in which the two main themes of revisionism --the technical and the "Third World"-- were combined. This led to a violent clarification by Serge July the following day and the disciplining of the editor responsible for their publication.
  72. For example, aside from the books of Bardèche and Rassinier, in a volume by G. A. Amaudruz (a Swiss Nazi): Un justicier au premier procès de Nuremberg (Paris: Ch. de Jonquière, 1949).
  73. See "A Paper Eichmann," supra, pp. 31-32.
  74. 1 offer a few details concerning La Vieille Taupe in the second section of my study "A Paper Eichmann." It was specifically on the basis of what he knew or thought he knew of Rassinier that Noam Chomsky allied himself with the French group without, however, adhering personally to revisionist theses; see as well infra, pp. 116-120.
  75. Those themes appear with perfect clarity in a tract distributed by these groups in October 1980 and entitled "Our Kingdom is a Prison." It was reprinted in the previously mentioned booklet (supra , n. 54), De l'exploitation dans les camps.
  76. Concerning Drumont and the influence he exercised, see Z. Sternhell, La Droite révolutionnaire, 1885-1914: Les origines françaises du fascisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1978), and M. Winock's collection, Drumont et Cie (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982).
  77. E. Drumont, La France juive (Paris: Marpont-Flammarion, 1886), II:408-409.
  78. See my texts "Des musées et des hommes," preface to R. Marienstras, Etre un peuple en diaspora, reprinted in Les Juifs, pp. 110-125.
  79. A basic work on these historiographical practices and, in general, on the great massacre is L. S. Dawidowicz's book The Holocaust and the Historians (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), a work which unfortunately yields too often to an excess opposite to the one it rightfully denounces (the banalization of the slaughter) and falls into Judeocentrism. Concerning the Soviet Union and Poland, this work nevertheless contributes crucial information and could be cited in each of the following notes; another work --by R. Braham-- is announced as forthcoming.
  80. Essentially C. Simonov, Maïdanek, un camp d'extermination, accompanied by a report by the Polish-Soviet Investigatory Commission (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1945), and V. Grossmann, L'Enfer de Treblinka (Paris: Arthaud, 1945, reprt. 1966), works without any real documentary value; aside from the indications of L. S. Dawidowicz, The Holocaust, pp. 69-79, see the brief study by E. Goldhagen, "Der Holocaust in der Sowjetischen Propaganda und Geschichtsschreibung," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 28 (1980):502-507.
  81. For the entire period prior to 1962, there is a good documentary guide in Polish, which does not deal with the camps devoted solely to extermination such as Treblinka, but which includes Auschwitz: Wanda Kiedrzynska, Materialy do Bibliografi Hitlerowskich obosow koncentracyjnych (Warsaw, 1964). Research was conducted in twenty- one languages, including Russian. It can easily be seen that the place occupied by works in that language is insignificant. The Russian translation of the classic work on Auschwitz by the Pole Jan Sehn bears the number 1382 and was published in Warsaw in 1961.
  82. I quote the German translation introduced and annotated by A. Hillgruber and H. A. Jacobsen: B. S. Telpuchowski, Die Sowjetische Geschichte des Grossen Vaterländischen Krieges (1941-1945) (Frankfurt: Bernard et Graefe, 1961); on the Jews, cf. p. 272, on the camps, see pp. 422-424. The German publishers do not mention the author's discretion concerning the genocide of the Jews even though their introduction and notes are quite critical. A few years later a narrative of the campaign of 1944-1945 was published: 1. Konev et al., La Grande Campagne libératrice de l'armée soviétique (Moscow: Editions du progrès, 1975); on p. 71, there is discussion of "the gigantic extermination factory" of Auschwitz, with absurd statistics, but no mention of the Jews. For further details, see S. Friedländer, "De l'antisémitisme à l'extermination: Esquisse historiographique et essai d'interprétation," L'Allemagne nazie, pp. 13-38.
  83. M. Broszat writes in "Holocaust und die Geschichtswissenschaft," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 27 (1979):285-298 (see pp. 294-295), that the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft in East Berlin, between 1953 and 1972, published a sum total of one article on the subject, in 1961, p. 1681, and that this was merely a review of works published in the West. This is not quite exact: see, for example, in 1962, pp. 954-957, the review of a Polish book; in 1963, pp. 794-796, the review of the series Hefte con Auschwitz; in 1964, pp. 5-27, L. Berthold's article on fascist terrorism in Germany and its victims, etc. But it is true that research articles are rare --incommensurate in quality and quantity with those published in Munich-- and that a polemical accent against West Germany is characteristic; one study delves deeply into East German historiography on the subject and has the great merit of distinguishing among various chronological sequences; K. Kwist, "Historians of the German Democratic Republic on Anti-Semitism and Persecution," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXI (1976):173-198; 1 owe this reference to Saul Friedländer.
  84. See, for example, F. K. Kaul and J. Noack, Angeklagter Nr. 6. Eine Auschwitz-Dokumentation (Berlin: Akad. Verlag, 1966), which deals with complementary documentation concerning one of the defendants, Pery Broad, in the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt.
  85. I have given several examples of these qualities and deficiencies of Polish historiography in "A Paper Eichmann," supra, pp. 22, 26-27.
  86. For incidental information concerning the Polish works (of the historians K. Iranek-Osmecki of London and C. Luczak of Poznan in particular), see the articles of S. Krakowski, "The Slaughter of Polish Jewry: A Polish Reassessment," The Wiener Library Bulletin, XXVI, 3-4, 1972-1973, pp. 13-20; "The Jewish Struggle Against the Nazis in Poland, According to Jewish and Polish Literature" (in Hebrew), VIIth World Congress on the Sciences of Judaism, Research on the History of the Holocaust (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 45-49; "The Shoah of the Polish Jews in the Book of the Polish Researcher C. Luczak," (in Hebrew) Yalkout Morechet (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 183-198. It is hard for me to evaluate personally historiography in a language I do not know; a friend whose judgment I trust and to whom I transmitted S. Krakowski's articles tends to dismiss the two adversaries back to back, each one perceiving the chauvinism of the other; it is nonetheless the case that the symmetry, in this circumstance, can not be absolute.
  87. See, for example, M. Teich, "New Editions and Old Mistakes" (concerning Reitlinger), Yad Vashem Studies VI (1967):375-384; N. Eck, "Historical Research or Slander?" (on Bettelheim, H. Arendt, R. Hilberg), ibid., pp. 385-430, and above all, concerning H. Arendt, the work of J. Robinson, La Tragédie juive sous la croix gammée à la lumière du procès de Jérusalem (le récit de Hannah Arendt et la réalité des faits (Paris: CDJC, 1969), translated by L. Steinberg. Israeli historiography has evolved in the interim, not in its entirety, to be sure, and not always at the same pace; but see in Unanswered Questions the contributions of A. Funkenstein and S. Volkov for example.
  88. This was evident in the colloquium during which this paper was presented and particularly during the debate following the presentation of Arno Mayer, which has subsequently evolved into his book Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?
  89. See the courageous article of the Israeli journalist Boaz Evron, "Interpretations of the Holocaust: A Danger for the Jewish People," French translation in Revue des études palestiniennes 2 (Winter 1982):36-52. The original appeared in Hebrew in Yiton 77, May-June 1980.
  90. The Yad Vashem Institute is at once a scientific institute, a museum, and a place for meditation, each of them admirable, but one also finds in government tourist agencies in Jerusalem brochures inviting one to visit a "Holocaust cave" on Mount Zion, about which I prefer not to elaborate.
  91. T. W. Adorno, Dialectique négative (Paris: Payot, 1978), pp. 283-286; I quote from pp. 283-284; for the intellectual context of Adorno's analysis, see J. P. Bier, Auschwitz et les nouvelles littératures allemandes (Brussels: Ed. de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1979).
  92. An effort is needed to recall as much, but in the years following the war, the symbol of the world of the concentration camps was not Auschwitz but Buchenwald. In consulting the Polish bibliography cited above (n. 81), one notes that in 1962 the number of works published on Buchenwald clearly exceeded the number devoted to the great Silesian slaughterhouse.
  93. The notion of an absolute crime alas, functions in Israel and even elsewhere to justify relative crimes.
  94. Concerning Dachau, cf. M. Broszat's letter to Die Zeit, August 19, 1960, which has since been reprinted numerous times and often deformed in the press and in revisionist literature. That being the case, one should not press the opposition between concentration camps and extermination camps too far. In the case of Dachau, precisely, personnel trained on the grounds were in many cases then used in Auschwitz and other murder sites. See the recent clarification by H. G. Richardi, Schule der Gewalt. Die Anfänge des Konzentrationslager Dachau 1933-1934. Ein dokumentarischer Bericht (Munich: Beck, 1983), pp. 241-248; on Krema I in Auschwitz, see W. Stäglich, Der Auschwitz Mythos, pp. 77 and 137. On this point, I have received photographic documentation from the Auschwitz Museum, which leaves no doubt as to tampering. It is on the subject of Anne Frank's Diary that the offensive has been conducted with greatest effectiveness; see, for example, R. Faurisson in S. Thion, Vérité, pp. 213-300, a study subsequently republished in English in the Journal of Historical Review III(2):147-209. Since then The Diary of Anne Frank has been published in a critical edition which appears to have resolved the problem of its authenticity; see H. Paape, G. van der Stroom, and D. Barnouw, De Dagboeken van Anne Frank (The Hague: Staatsuigeverij, and Amsterdam, Uigeverij Bert Bakker, 1986).
  95. I borrow the phrase from J.-C. Milner, Ordre et raisons de la langue (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982), pp. 323-325.
  96. See "A Paper Eichmann," section II.
  97. This is a domain little studied in France. In Germany, recent revisionist literature has often been prompted by Holocaust (1979), as in the United States. See the articles of J. Herf, A. S. Markovits, R. S. Hayden, and S. Zielinski, New German Critique 19 (Winter 1980):30-96, which gives a quite complete overall view of the reception of the television series in Germany. An example of the revisionist reaction: H. Härtle, Was Holocaust verschweigt: Deutsche Verteidigung gegen Kollektiv-Schuld-Lugen (Leon) am Starnbergersee, 1979).

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