Interview with the Tehran Times

“Holocaust is West’s last taboo”

 

published December 19, 2006

 

Robert Faurisson is a revisionist scholar from France who attended the “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision” conference in Tehran from December 11 to 12.

Following is the text of an interview with Faurisson conducted by the Tehran Times at the daily’s offices on December 13.

 

Q: What is your opinion about the Tehran conference?

A: This conference is a big and nice surprise. I had never thought there could be such a thing. I was really pessimistic. When for the first time I heard that President Ahmadinejad said that the holocaust was a myth, I was so surprised. I wondered if Iran would exist anymore. I thought that the U.S. or Western countries would try to destroy this country because the belief in the holocaust is the central pillar of the West and the world. To say that it is a myth is something extremely dangerous. I, as a researcher, might say that it is a myth, but for the head of a state it is extremely dangerous. But he did it. Can I say something more?

I think that the year 2006 will be counted in history as a very important year because a country called Iran said no to Bush and yes to revisionists. It is marvellous.

Q: Could you elaborate on what you mean by the word myth? People use the word in a lot of different ways. Some mean it did not happen at all and some mean that some aspects of it happened.

A: President Ahmadinejad has used the right word. The alleged holocaust of the Jews is a myth. That is a belief maintained by credulity or ignorance. It does not mean that the people who believe it are liars. They are not liars, but they are believers.

Q: You are an expert in text and document analysis. What kind of information did you find in the documents from World War II that made you doubt some aspects of the holocaust?

A: My work was the work of a policeman, not the work of a professor. I was told there was a crime, an enormous crime. So I said “I want to see the weapon of the crime, and I want to see the place”. I went to Auschwitz, Dachau, Sachsenhausen… and places like that. And I asked a very simple question. I said “Show me a gas chamber”. They’ve told me there is a fantastic weapon, and I said, “OK, show me”.

In Auschwitz they said “This is a gas chamber”. And I looked at it like a policeman. And I said, “Sorry, this cannot be a gas chamber”, for very simple reasons. Because they said that the Germans used Zyklon B. Zyklon B is a product invented in the 1920s and it is still used today to kill lice. But Zyklon B is hydrocyanic acid, it is very dangerous. And they say that the Germans would put 2,000 Jews in this place. Two thousand people in this place, it is already impossible.

But anyway, they would put Jews in this place, and then in the roof there were four holes, and the Germans would go on the roof and would dump pellets of Zyklon B [through the holes] and then the Jews were dead. They say that a team, a group of Jews, would come in, very casually, eating, smoking, taking the dead bodies out to the crematoria, to burn them.

And I said, “Stop, impossible!” Impossible because hydrocyanic acid is something that sticks to the walls, to the ceiling, to the floor, and it penetrates the same way the bodies, it stays in the mouth, everywhere, on the skin. So, first you cannot enter this place even if you switch on the ventilation because it sticks very strongly. You cannot get rid of it. And you cannot touch the body of someone who has been killed by this gas. You cannot touch it. And remember, they were eating and smoking. “Eating” means no gas mask. And smoking is impossible because it is explosive. So as it is told, it is impossible. I acted like a policeman.

I went to the U.S. to visit a gas chamber. To execute one man, it is horribly complicated, horribly complicated, because it is too dangerous. If you see a gas chamber in the U.S., to kill one person, first you see a door in iron fitting like this, sealed perfectly, because you don’t want the gas to leak. And then, when the man is dead, it is extremely dangerous to go inside. So you have special fans, pushing the poison out, with a very strong vacuum. Then the gas is sent to a kind of tank to be neutralised. The gas, which is supposed to have been neutralised with sodium ammonia, is sent up a very high chimney.

On the day of the execution the guards are not allowed to go up to the towers because this gas can be very poisonous. And you have to wait something like one hour, and the doctor and two people with boots, gloves, and gas masks with a special filter, a very strong one, go inside the place and try to wash the body, and they have to wash it thoroughly. Still the body is dangerous. You have to wait and wait. On the day of the execution, in spite of all those precautions, the body remains dangerous. And the day after, you still have the smell. It is fantastic, it is everywhere. To kill one man!

And there are many details that I could give you. I am going to give you one. You see, it is a criminal investigation, an inquiry. The gas chamber has a central pillar, very strong. Why? Why do we need this very strong pillar? It’s because the gas might leak outside in spite of all the precautions, so you have to avoid creating a depression. If you create a depression the gas chamber might collapse, so it has to be very strong. And many other details – it’s not a luxury, it’s necessary. It’s not American fantasy.

At the beginning, in 1917, during World War I, many Americans, thinking about the electric chair, said: “That’s too cruel. We’re going to invent something. We’re going to use gas. The people will be there, you’ll put gas in, the people will go to sleep, we’ll go inside, we’ll take the body out, and – finished!” No! The engineers had to work for five years, I think, to create one gas chamber and it was used for the first time in 1924 in Carson City, Nevada. They executed a man, but it was nearly a catastrophe. So you see, people think it’s very easy.

The Jews invented the story – I’m sorry – of the Zyklon B. They could have taken perhaps other gases, but they took this one, because when you got into the camps, you found cans of Zyklon B. It is a stupid story. It’s as if, coming in here, someone saw a knife and said, “Oh, this is the proof that Faurisson is a murderer!” A can of Zyklon B is the same thing. It was to protect health.

I could also explain to you the technicalities of Zyklon B applied to this, to cloth. It’s totally different, because this is dead, this is living. But, too many technicalities. It is technically impossible.

So I published this in the daily Le Monde. And I said if you people say that it is technically possible, come, explain to me. And I got their answer. I had to wait six weeks. Thirty-four professors – you know what professors are – signed a big declaration, and I’m going to quote exactly what they said, I’m not going to change a word, so this is the answer of 34 professors, this was on February 21, 1979: “One must not ask oneself how, technically, such a mass murder was possible. It was technically possible since it happened.” Professors’ silliness! Which means clearly: “Faurisson, we are not able to explain”; because if they’d had an explanation, they would have given it.

And I said “Show me a gas chamber”. And I went to Auschwitz; they said “This is a gas chamber”. And I said, “No, no, it’s impossible. First, you have three doors, which triples the difficulty of getting it sealed”. In Auschwitz the gas chamber had a short door with glass on the upper part of the door. The door opened inward, and the dead bodies were there, you could not open the door. It is silliness. It is such a silly story. It is humiliating for people to believe that. I said this at the end of the 1970s…

I was insulted, I was kicked out of the university, I had I don’t how many court cases. I was ruined. No more money for myself, for my wife, for my children. I was insulted day and night and for years and years.

And in 1995, one day, opening a magazine called L’Express, there was a very long article written by a man called Eric Conan. And this man is against us.

And he had written a book about the holocaust. So I was reading this, and suddenly, on page 68, I thought I would fall off my chair, I read this. He said about the gas chamber in Auschwitz, the emblematic gas chamber, which has been visited up to now by 25 to 30 million tourists. They say that at the Auschwitz Museum. He said exactly this: “Everything in it is false.” And he said: “In the late 1970s, Robert Faurisson exploited these falsifications all the better as the museum administration balked at acknowledging them.” So Faurisson exploited those falsifications, and it was easy for him because the people at the Auschwitz museum didn’t want to answer him. So it was easy.

Let me tell you one thing. So, Eric Conan went to visit a lady who was a manager of the holocaust Museum, and he said, “How is it? It’s false. You cannot keep it like that. You have to tell the visitors.”

Q: So he acknowledged and confirmed the falsifications that you discovered?

A: More than that. He said everything was false. And then he went to see this lady, and the lady answered, “No. We are not going to explain. It would be too difficult. So we’ll leave it as it is.”

Which means: “We have lied, we are lying, and we are going to continue to lie.”

Q: Why are Israelis and most other Jews so sensitive about the holocaust, and why are countries like the United States and some other countries which pay reparations even more sensitive about this issue?

A: It’s because the holocaust is weapon number one of the state of Israel. It’s the sword and the shield of the state of Israel and… Jewry, all together. It’s their weapon number one. They need it. Because after the war, in 1947, the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Empire, everywhere the colonies were crumbling, disappearing. And you had an artificial creation of a colony of Jews in Palestine.

Q: At the very time of decolonisation, at the beginning of decolonisation.

A: Yes. So, it’s very strange. And the explanation is this. It’s only because the Jews could say: “Our sufferings were exceptional. So, for an exceptional evil, you need an exceptional remedy.” That’s why, to answer your question, the United States and the Jews all over the world, not only the Zionists, they need this myth. It’s vital for them.

Q: Those who support the holocaust claim that they have been paying lots of money to the survivors of the holocaust, but on the other hand, the survivors, the Jews, claim that this is just a registration, there is no money. How’s that?

A: You have on the one hand Jews, on the other hand you have Jewish organisations. Organisations like the World Jewish Congress with Mr Edgar M. Bronfman. So Edgar Bronfman comes and says to Switzerland, to Germany, and to Austria, you have to pay. And they pay. And Mr Bronfman takes the money. According to many Jews it seems that many of them, or perhaps a few of them, do not receive any money.

Q: In the press you are being very harshly criticised. People are taking your words out of context. Can you clarify your position? You are not denying every single aspect of this. You are basically saying that the gas chambers didn’t exist, but you are not denying that some Jews were in concentration camps and some of them died of various causes such as illness or overwork in these concentration camps?

A: Of course… I never said the concentration camps did not exist. I never said that there were no deportations. I never said that there were no Jewish hostages shot or things like that. Of course.

I say the deportations happened, the concentration camps existed, but there were no extermination camps.

Q: In your opinion, how many Jews were killed?

A: We do not know. But we could know. There is a place in Germany, in Arolsen, called the International Tracing Service. And in 1978, when the revisionists came, they closed their historical section they had in German. This was a place where you had kilometres and kilometres of documents.

But, for clarification, you should hear my 60-word sentence. It’s 60 words in French. I said I should put it in one sentence.

“The alleged declared Nazi gas chambers and the alleged genocide of the Jews form one and the same historical lie which has permitted the gigantic political and financial swindle whose main beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international Zionism and whose main victims are the German people, but not their leaders, and the Palestinian people in their entirety.”

Now when I say historical lie, it does not mean that the people who are repeating it are liars. They are repeating something that they think is right.

Q: The Tehran holocaust conference has created a firestorm of controversy throughout the world. Do you think you will be in danger when you go back to your country?

A: Yes, and we know already that yesterday [December 12] they said that I should be arrested on my arrival in France. But, of course, I am going back in spite of the danger.

I’m not sure if I will be arrested, but I will certainly be prosecuted, because remember what happened quite recently with the Sahar television network. But I don’t care! I’ve had so many trials. I know that automatically I will be sentenced…

Here in this country I feel free. I can discuss with you. In France it is absolutely impossible. In France if a newspaper would say, “We have received Faurisson”… the Jews would say, “Bad for you.”

They say you have no right to dispute the holocaust. Even you don’t have the right to look as if you were disputing the holocaust. You should not even give the appearance [of disputing the holocaust].

For instance, there is a professor in Lyon, who recently said only this: “As for the gas chambers, I wish the historians could debate about it freely.” A catastrophe! He was kicked out of his teaching position for five years, with his salary cut in half, then he was sued in court by I don’t know how many people, and you know what happened? And I can understand it. I don’t criticise him.

He went on his knees, like Galileo Galilei. A Jewish lawyer said, “If you say that the gas chambers existed, I’ll withdraw our charges” – yet I don’t know how many. And the professor hesitated, and said yes. And the lawyer said, “Say it, say it.” And the presiding judge said, “Say it. Do you confirm that you say that they existed?” And he said yes. And after the trial, he went to one of us, I don’t want to give his name, and he said, “I am ashamed, I behaved like Saint Peter” – who said, “I don’t know Jesus.” The man to whom he said that said, “But at least Saint Peter afterwards corrected himself and did something good afterwards for Jesus.” And this professor said, “I am going to do like Saint Peter.”

On the contrary, do you know what he did? He said to the media, “I have always said that the gas chambers existed!” And I understand that. If you could see what the trial of a revisionist in France is! I’ve been to court cases of revisionists in France, in Belgium, in Austria, in Germany, in England, in Canada. It’s terrible. It’s absolutely terrible. The strongest man could become like a ghost, broken.

Q: It’s like the Spanish Inquisition?

A: Oh, yes. And they don’t need to touch people physically. It’s not prison, it’s not finances, it’s not that. It’s the fact that you cannot go out in the street – like my wife – because in the street they say, “Hah! She’s the wife of the man who says the concentration camps didn’t exist.”

Q: So the person becomes an outcast in society?

A: Of course, but I don’t care.

My wife cares, of course! My elder son cares very much. Every time that I go through this kind of ordeal, I think of the Palestinians. And I say I have no right to complain.

Q: Discussion of the holocaust and even examining it historically is forbidden, but it is permissible to study every other aspect of history. What do you think of this fact? And another question. In France, which is mostly a Christian and a Catholic country, somehow their interpretation of Western liberal democracy allows them to make fun of God and of the Bible. They can question the truth of the Bible, they can question God, but they can’t question the holocaust. Doesn’t this somehow put the holocaust above the Bible and God in a Christian country? Is there no reaction on the part of the Christians of France to this state of affairs?

A: No! Among the people prosecuting me in court for the Sahar interview, you had the League of Human Rights. They were against me, saying Faurisson is an offence to human rights. Faurisson is inspired by hatred, by anti-Semitism, by I don’t know what. They say that they read in my brain. They should look at what I’m writing, but it is totally taboo. We have only one taboo.

Do you know that in France there is a TV programme called “Les Guignols”? For at least one year they kept repeating that the president of the republic was a “super liar”. So, you can touch the president of the republic in France, you can say anything you want, anything, but don’t even dispute the gas chambers, don’t even look as if you were disputing it. And if you want a precise reference about this, we have the criminal code: on page 2059, seventh column, edition of 2006, you will see, they say you don’t have the right to dispute even in a disguised way or by insinuation. The law was very simple. The law said you had no right to dispute. But afterwards you have what we call implementation. So, there is no right to say it even in a disguised way.

Don’t go to France and pronounce my name! Be careful! Don’t say that you have seen me! You are finished!

Q: So, almost none of the Christians are rising up against this system that basically puts another idea above Christianity?

A: The Christians are the worst! The people who say we defend freedom of information, of thinking… You know, this is an experience of life. You are young. Remember that an old man told you this one day: If somebody comes and says, “I am a defender of human rights”, do you know what I do? I escape! Why? Because people who have that in their mouth, they don’t have it in their brain because they think, “Oh, I’m so good, I am defending liberty.” So those people think that they are so good that other people can only be bad. They approach me and say, “Mr Faurisson, I’m not sure you are as good as I am!” This is an experience of life. Like people who say, “I am against war, against war.” They are very dangerous.

Q: Would you like to say a few last words?

A: The fact that President Ahmadinejad said this is so important – that, of course, it is an encouragement for me. But when I receive a piece of good news, I start waiting for some bad news. I think that on Friday [December 15] there will be bad news.

Q: You mean like trouble from the government of France or…

A: Or Jewish forces. I have been attacked physically ten times, twice I nearly died.

Do you know that there is one question that I cannot answer? It seems that I can answer any question, but there is one that I cannot answer. It’s when people come to me and say, “Robert, you might be right, but perhaps you should not speak your mind because, Robert, don’t you have a wife, don’t you have children? It seems that you are forgetting your wife and your children.” My father used to say the first duty of a man is to protect his wife and his children. And I don’t know what to answer. What would you answer?

But a soldier does not choose this. He has to go. It’s an order. But nobody orders me to do this. How is it that Galileo Galilei did what he did?

You are a student or an adult or an old man and you read books, and you say, “Oh wonderful, this man was so brave!” And we have our heroes. But when you meet a man like me who, compared with those people, in courage, am a little man, you say, “He’s a fool.” Because you are a coward! And seeing someone who is courageous, you feel humiliated.

December 13, 2006