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Correspondence

THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS RELIGIOUS ROOTS

It was good to read Dr. Charles Weber’s article “The Six Million Thesis — Cui Bono?” in the Summer 1982 issue of The Journal of Historical Review. Dr. Weber’s article does well to point out some of the concrete, practical reasons for the propagation and perpetuation of the holocaust myth. Among these is the financial motive, the billions bilked from West Germany as “reparations,” the billions raised from world Jewry as sympathy money, as a “moral obligation.” Dr. Weber may be right in his contention that East-block countries join in perpetuating the myth because they wish to remind their oppressed populations that things might have been worse if the Nazis had won. I believe, however, that from the perspective of, and in the jargon of, the “socialist” countries, the West, i.e., the old Western Allies, now represent the “evils” of Fascism-Nazism. In the light of the long and deep-rooted anti-Semitic traditions of many Eastern European peoples, e.g. the Poles, the Russians, etc., it is unlikely that those peoples identify with the Jews. During World War II, German military authorities often had to intervene to protect Jews from the local population. It seems more plausible that East-block propaganda efforts are less geared toward building sympathy for the Jews as such, than to illustrating to what monstrous depths capitalist-Fascist-Nazism can descend, a “Nazi” imperialism which still threatens their countries.

Besides these tangible, concrete reasons, holocaustism and its ceaseless propagation also have religious roots. War, pestilence, famine, and death as personified in the Grim Reaper appealed to the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque imagination. A common theme in music, painting, and literature was the Dance of Death, or Totentanz. Of course the sick fantasies of Jewish writers (and they are numerous, if not dominant) are engaged in elaborating new and more sensational aspects of holocaustism. Because such a steady diet of it has been prepared over the years, and because this death-diet continues to be served up relentlessly, it is not surprising that some non-Jewish imaginations have taken up holocaustism, which is essentially a nauseating, Jewish-directed updating and restaging of the old Dance of Death theme. Some non-Jewish authors have found it engaging or profitible to join in the Jewish-led Dance of Death. The real cost of the holocaust is the psychic damage inflicted on humanity, including the Jews themselves, by the sick fantasies of those who get their kicks from perpetuating the six million myth. Many Jews resent their holocaust, for them the holocaust, being up-staged by talk of Hiroshima or any impending nuclear holocaust (perhaps one that might result from that continuing struggle as to who shall own that “Holy” Land).

One consolation for the thoughtful non-Jew when exposed to the constant flood of pathological holocaust Dance of Death fantasies, including those dressed up as “semi-documentaries,” is to remember that the Hindu deity Shiva, known as Lord of the Dance, cyclically swings back and forth between creation and destruction, between life and death Right now the Jews are calling the cacophonous tune, giving the negative beat to a contemporary Dance of Death. But sooner than the Jews know it, the cyclic pendulum may swing back to a healthier, more positive and life-oriented attitude. Instead of peddling psychoses and sickness, writers and the media may again take up more invigorating, life-directed themes. Perhaps because harsh post-war economic realities did not permit it, perhaps because the media were supervised and censored by the Allies (and the Jews), Germans had neither the leisure nor the luxury of indulging in their own Dance of Death around the staggering destruction and appalling loss of life caused by the Allied armies and aerial bombardments. Instead the Germans picked up the pieces of a destruction which was very real and tangible, not faked and phony, and got on with the business of life. Other peoples would do well to emulate that example.

Another factor in the perpetuation of holocaustism is the profound religious and psychological need of Jews and Judaism to perpetuate their persecutions. Such tales are integrally woven into the texture and fabric of Jewish scripture and ritual. Any cursory (or lengthy) reading of the Old Testament will reveal that it is a record of the Jewish tribal God, Jehovah, constantly smiting and striking down the enemies of his chosen people.

In large measure, the Jewish religion is simply a record of the triumph of the children of Israel over their enemies. Triumphs, such as the one commemorated in the Feast of Passover, were achieved with the help of their tribal god. Egyptians visited by unspeakable plagues and afflictions, Haman in Persia hung on the gallows he destined for the Jews — the message is always the same. Millions of Germans groveling in the ruins, and millions of Germans and others displaced and uprooted at the end of World War II are, to the Jews, merely modern counterparts of the Egyptians of old. Although it sometimes serves the Jewish imagination to resurrect Hitler in the jungles of South America, in the Sahara, the Antarctic, or even in outer space, Hitler — dead in his gutted bunker — is, for the Jew, merely a modern Haman, another anti-Semite who tried to destroy the Jews but was himself destroyed. On the feast of Purim, Jews make a great din in the synagogue, loudly rattling and shouting when Haman’s name is mentioned. They call it “making a megillah.” Continuing holocaustism, in all its forms, (the written and spoken word, museums, monuments, study programs, etc.) may be said to be diverse forms and degrees of “making a megillah", with Hitler substituted for Haman. The Wailing Wall mentality, i.e. the necessity to lament loudly, publicly, stridently, is part of the essence of Judaism. Wailing about persecution and the subsequent brazen revelling in the triumph over it, are basic Jewish characteristics. Before the alleged “holocaust,” the Jews were an international entity. They have since retained this identity and added a national identity the state called “Israel,” a state which does much public holocaust wailing, and also exults openly in its repeated military triumphs, despite the hostility of much of the world, as expressed in numerous U.N. resolutions which Israel ignores.

For the Jews, their solidarity and superiority are sealed and confirmed by triumph over enemies. This persecution, and the triumph over it, is essential to Jewish identity. Jewish leaders make no attempt to conceal their fear of assimilation. Ben-Gurion, and many rabbis, have pointed out that the great enemy of Judaism in America is not the pogrom, but the country club, i.e. the social acceptance and possible absorption of the Jews by their host population. Although Christianity, like Islam, may correctly be said to be a sect of Judaism, and Catholicism and Protestantism may be said to be sub-sects of that sect, most professional Jews are terrified of intermarriage with Gentiles. Even though neither the Jewish nor the Gentile partner may practice any religion in earnest, it is usually the Gentile partner who converts to Judaism, because the Jewish neurosis insists on preserving its existence as a chosen, elite group, surrounded by a horde of less favored individuals, to whom Jews are superior in every respect but numbers. To cement Jewish religious and ethnic identity, persecution and the triumph over it are essential. Therefore, many Jews today point out the necessity to kill 10, 20, or even 100 hostile, persecuting Arabs for every Jew killed.

This institutionalizing and ritualizing of persecution and triumph over it has, of course, been extended to the 20th century “holocaust.” In synagogue vestibules today one is greeted by a Yad Vashem memorial, a kind of elaborate candelabrum commemorating the 6 million. It is the first and last thing a Jew sees when entering or leaving the synagogue. This contraption, this candelabrum, is of course a contemporary fabrication. But it has become as much an emblem of Judaism as the menorah, the symbolic candelabrum emblematic of the Hanukah holiday, which Jews style “The Feast of Lights.” It might more appropriately be called the “Feast of Darkness,” since it commemorates Jehovah’s miraculous intervention on behalf of his people against Hellenist Greeks, to enable the Jews to retain their identity, their religion, i.e. the racial and religious psychosis called Judaism. It would truly have been a Feast of Lights if those Hellenist Greeks had won. Had they, the light of classical Greek civilization might not have been extinguished for so many centuries by the Jewish infection which spread to non-Jews, producing the Christian outgrowth still with us today.

Even Communist rulers have learned that the religious impulse in man is ineradicable, however brilliant the light of reason brought to bear on it. One of the more noble endeavors of Nazi Germany was the attempt to provide Germans with a workable religious alternative to that form of Judaism known as Christianity. Celtic, Germanic, Romanic, Slavic, and other peoples who abandoned their own religious identity for Christianity would do well to turn again to the more nature-oriented religion of their ancestors. Unfortunately, their own religious traditions were disturbed, interrupted, vitiated, diluted, destroyed or partially absorbed by Christianity. just as the “sacrifice of the Mass” may be said to be an improvement on the animal and human sacrifices which preceded it, the still living but much vitiated traditions of pre-Christianity should be taken up again, refined, ennobled, elaborated, and developed. Many of the world’s illusions and ills might thus be alleviated. Even that so-called “Holy” Land might become truly holy, if Judaism and its two daughters, Christianity and Islam, were given up in favor of older, pantheistic religions which existed in the area before the naissance of that unholy trio of related religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Ireland, Celts often still join battle in the name of two sub-sects of a sect of Judaism. One solution for Ireland’s problems would be to abandon both the Catholic and Protestant form of Jewish-derived Christianity and to return to a restructured, re-created form of earliest Celtic religions.

In Europe, Christianity moved into the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Roman Empire. Diocesan boundaries followed exactly the prior Roman administrative lines. Subsequently, many non-Christian or “pagan” peoples, such as the Saxons, were forcibly converted. Other tribes left for Iceland to escape forced Christianization, although they, too, were eventually converted. The best minds of Europe, however, minds like Goethe’s and Victor Hugo's, freed themselves from the shackles of Christianity, while retaining a profoundly religious attitude (an amalgam of their own making) toward life. Religious expression, especially when organized, has. often been irrational. Yet the religious spirit innate in man need not conflict with scientific inquiry. In fact, the scientific investigation along with the artistic creation, is religion, real religion. Perhaps the reason Christianity today needs a Bernstein to write its music and a Chagall to do its artwork is because it is an alien, assumed religion for many peoples who have lost their own indigenous religion.

Holocaustism, like Christianity and Islam, is a product of Judaism When more people realize this, there will be hope for liberation from holocaustism. and other religion-related evils.

George F. Corners II
New York City

BOOK COLLECTORS

Friends here in Milwaukee have been attempting to buy old reference books on the used market, the purpose being that they wish to help found a school library (private) in Necedah, Wisconsin.

As they go about from used bookstore to used bookstore, they find encyclopedia sets older than the 1960s with entire volumes missing: each time the same volumes-those dealing with the subject of Jews or Khazars. At these same bookstores they say that one cannot find an almanac old enough to deal with the Jewish population figures which might help shed light on the “Holocaust” allegation.

When they answer an advertisement in the local papers for used books of a historical or informational nature, they find that two or three young persons have already contacted the seller, and have literally made an offer which the seller was not able to refuse.

A month or so ago, on a local radio talk show, I made an argument against the “Holocaust” allegations using the figures from the 1938 World Almanac and the February 22, 1948 edition of the New York Times, among other materials. These friends of ours told me that the Zionists were out the very next day trying to sweep up any old editions of the World Almanac still about in the used bookstores.

Donald V. Clerkin
Milwaukee, Wis.

The Question of the Deaths of Rumanian Jews
An Exchange of Correspondence Between Mark Weber and Dr. Serban Andronescu

I am very grateful for your letter of 15 January 1982. Please pardon this tardy reply.

As you suggested, I found the journal Genus in the Library of Congress which contained the report by Dr. Sabin Manuila and Dr. W. Filderman, “Regional development of the Jewish population in Romania.” (Genus [Rome] Vol. XIII, Nos. 1-4 1957. pp. 153-165. LC# HB 881 G4 1957.) 1 put off writing to you until I had obtained a copy of the article and had a chance to study it carefully.

During your presentation at the 1981 Institute for Historical Review Conference (published in The JHR, Summer 1982), you stated that the Manuila/Filderman report gave a figure of only 15,000 as the total number of Rumanian Jews who perished during the Second World War. This figure is actually only of Jews in the truncated Rumanian state and does not include the Jews of northern Transylvania (which was ceded to Hungary 1940-1945) or of the territory ceded 1940-1941 to the USSR (including Bessarabia). According to Manuila/Filderman, the total “decrease in the number of Jews” includes not only the 15,000 you mentioned, but 90,295 for northern Transylvania and 103,919 for the Soviet territories (including Bessarabia). The total number of Jewish losses for Rumania in its pre-1940 borders, according to Manuila/Filderman, is 209,214.

It is this figure, and not that of 15,000, which must be compared with the figures of Jewish “holocaust” victims for Rumania which are claimed by Jewish historians today.

In 1946, the American Jewish Congress estimated the number of Jewish victims for Rumania (pre-1940 borders) at 425,000. That same year, the Angol-American Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine gave an estimate of 530,000, likewise for the pre-1940 border Rumania. Gerald Rietlinger in The Final Solution gives an estimate of 200,000 to 220,000 Jewish victims. Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews estimates 270,000. In her book The War Against the Jews, Lucy Dawidowicz estimates 300,000. Of these various widely circulated “establishment” estimates, Reitlinger’s is closest to that of Manuila/Filderman.

But this kind of comparison can be very misleading because several very important qualifications must be made to the figure of 209,214 given by Manuila/Filderman. This estimate is only for “decrease in the number of Jews” and includes not only Jews who were killed, but also those who simply died and, more importantly, those who emigrated or simply remained “missing.” Although Manuila/Filderman do not discuss it, “missing” Jews would most likely also include those who hastily had themselves baptized in order to avoid classification as Jews. (This was possible under Rumanian policy.) Hilberg (p.494) quotes a reliable German newspaper which reported in 1942 that 40,000 Jews in Bessarabia (one in every five) had “converted” to avoid deportation to Transnistria. More significantly, Filderman reports that no less than 100,000 Jews in the temporarily-Soviet territories (including Bessarabia) were evacuated or withdrew into the interior of the Soviet Union before the area was retaken by Rumanian-German forces in 1941. Manuila/Filderman report that 100,000 among their 209,214 estimate of “decrease in the number of Jews.” Taking that into account, this reduces the number of Rumanian Jews who were killed or died to a maximum of 109,214.

But even this figure is too high. Manuila/Filderman claim that of an estimated 148,295 Jews who were living in northern Transylvania, 137,125 were “deported to Germany, to forced labor camps, with the exception of 14,000. There returned to Rumania a total of 44,000, which were found in various camps there (sic) at the end of the war. Hence there were altogether 58,000 survivors, and the rest of 90,295 “perished.” At another point, though, Manuila/Filderman admit that the figure of 90,295 is really for “decrease by deaths and migration.” That is, it includes Jews from northern Transylvania who survived the war and emigrated to Palestine, the United States, western Europe and so forth.

Even if we were to accept a rather high figure of approximately 100,000 as the maximum number of Rumanian Jews who perished, based on the Manuila/Filderman estimates, we still do not know how many of that number died unavoidably due to wartime conditions and how many were killed for whatever reasons.

Although certainly more reliable than most estimates of this kind, I believe that the Manuila/Filderman figures exaggerate Rumanian Jewish losses and must still be viewed with caution. For example, I believe that their estimate of 137,125 for the number of Jews deported from northern Transylvania to the German Reich is probably too high.

The important point, though, is that the Manuila/Filderman report proves that all of the standard estimates for the number of Rumanian Jewish “holocaust victims” are grossly irresponsible exaggerations. Even if we were to accept a figure of 100,000 deaths, which would be high according to the Manuila/Filderman report, this would still be anywhere from one-half to less than one-fifth of the number claimed by establishment Jewish historians.

I was impressed with the lengthy article you wrote for the publication “Romanian Communion.” Thank you for sending it. As you point out, it is important to remember that what Lucy Dawidowicz calls “The War Against the Jews” ultimately ended in a victory for the self-chosen people.

It so happens that a former university colleague of mine now words for Radio Free Europe in Munich. He also commented on the important role played by the Jews at RFE.

I certainly look forward to meeting and talking with you again. There are a number of topics I'd like to discuss.

Best regards,
Mark Weber
Washington, D.C.

I have your letter of 8 May and am very surprised by what you write about the “Romanian” Jews. You are an important contributor to revisionist publications and it is important that you have an accurate view of what you call “Romanian” Jewry. I support revisionist activities too, and receive some of the publications. However, if I noticed in one of these publications such a view as that expressed in your letter, I would protest that view.

We — academic researchers — must differentiate between the Romanian administration over Romanian territories and the alien administration (Soviet, Hungarian, Bulgarian) over the same territories. I am referring here to the northern half of Transylvania, to Bessarabia and to the southern part of Dobrudja, all territories which were (and, in part, still are) under an alien administration. What you call “Romanian” Jewry became Hungarian Jewry, Soviet Jewry and Bulgarian Jewry as soon as these territories became Hungarian, Soviet, or Bulgarian in 1940. You should know that the Jews usually change their residence from one country to another. Their only true allegiance is to Israel.

Moreover, under no circumstances can you honestly make the Romanian administration responsible for what happened to the Jews who remained in those ceded territories. To make myself clear, here is an example. Take a Jew who was born in Oradea in 1920, under Romanian administration. He became a “Hungarian” Jew between 1940 and 1945 when Oradea was under Hungarian rule. Then he emigrated to France. If something happened to him in France, would you make the Hungarian or Romanian administrations responsible for what happened to him under the French rule? Of course not. This is a principle of International law and not of one’s opinion. According to the same legal principle, if he committed a crime in France and than he fled to Hungary or Romania he cannot be punished for that crime by the Hungarian or Romanian laws: he must be extradited to France. You cannot even list him as a Romanian Jew because there is no law in Romania(as there is in the USA) to grant somebody Romanian citizenship on the basis of his birth only.

For your complete information I will tell you a true story. There lived in Oradea (a city of Transylvania) a very rich Jewish hotel-keeper who, like the majority of Jews, remained in Oradea after 1940. When the Hungarian regent, Admiral Horthy, triumphantly entered Oradea and took possession of that territory, the hotel-keeper decorated at his own expense the large avenue of the city, on which the admiral pompously paraded riding a beautiful silvery mare. Four years later, in June 1944, when the Hungarian police booked him for deportation, he vainly protested, invoking his loyalty to Hungary; he was taken from Oradea together with other Jews and never came back.

The Romanian administration of Bucharest was unable to care for those who remained in those territories, whether Romanians, Jews, or others. As a matter of fact, more Romanians than Jews died in those territories because of various acts of war, but nobody speaks about them today. We, with our Christian background, prefer to forget about such ugly things. Many more Romanians were deported from Bessarabia by the Soviets and many Russians and Udrainians; were brought in instead so as to give the impression that Bessarabia was not Romania. The same thing happened to the German population of Poland, mainly to those Germans who lived in Pomerania, around Danzig, but again nobody speaks about them today.

Sincerely,
Dr. Serban Andronescu
New York City

Thank you for your letter of 15 May.

I'm very sorry that I did not make myself more clear in my letter to you of 8 May. It seems that the main misunderstanding is due to my use of the term “Rumanian Jews” to refer to Jews from within the pre-1 940 Rumanian borders. Like Manuila and Filderman, as well as most other historians, I write “Rumanian Jews” simply as a term of convenience.

You state that only Jews under Rumanian administration should be counted as “Rumanian Jews.” I understand your point of view. However, it is not unreasonable (for purposes of statistical comparison) to count as “Rumanian Jews” all Jews in pre-1940 Rumania, in much the same way that Jews in West Prussia, Upper Silesia, and so forth, are almost always counted today as “Polish Jews” even though these territories were integral parts of the German Reich during the Second World War. Should the Jews who lived in Warsaw during the Second World War be counted today as “Polish Jews” or “German Jews,” considering the fact that the Polish state had ceased to exist and Warsaw was in a territory legally regarded as a “Nebenland” of the German Reich? Should Jews living in the Sudetenland during the war be counted today as “Czechoslovakian Jews” or “German Jews"?

Just as it is not unreasonable to count Jews in Upper Silesia as “Polish Jews” because the territory was part of Poland before and after the war, so also is it not unreasonable to count Jews in northern Transylvania as “Rumanian Jews” because the territory was likewise part of Rumania before and after the war.

Contrary to what you imply in your letter of 15 May, at no point in my letter of 8 May did I ever “make the Romanian administration responsible for what happened to the Jews who remained in those ceded territories.” Indeed, I made a careful distinction between “the truncated Rumanian state” and pre-1940 Rumania. I specifically pointed out that northern Transylvania, for example, was administered by Hungary between 1940 and 1945 during the time when many Jews from the area were deported to Germany. Obviously, neither the Rumanian government nor the Rumanian administration. Please realize that I am less concerned with attributing “responsibility” for Jewish losses than in determining the extent of Jewish deaths during the war in all of pre-1940 Rumania (including those territories not under Rumanian administration).

During your presentation at the IHR conference, you stated that the indeed reputable survey by Manuila and Filderman had estimated the number of “Jews who died in Rumania during the war” at only 15,000. When I first heard a tape recording of that statement, I was immediately rather suspicious. It was hard for me to believe that a reputable estimate could be so much lower than those we see today.

Actually, the Manuila/Filderman report estimated “Jewish losses” for the territory of 1939 Rumania at 209,214 of which two percent (15,000) are attributed to the Rumanian administration. The 15,000 figure which you cited cannot be compared with the estimates of Dawidiwicz and other Jewish historians because theirs are for Jews in a much larger geographical area. The comparisons of estimates you made at the IHR conference is almost completely meaningless because the estimates you compare are for quite different territories and groups of Jews.

Also contrary to what you stated, the various Jewish estimates of “Rumanian Jews” who died during the war are not Jews “killed by the Rumanians,” but rather of Jews from the territory of pre-1940 Rumania who perished, at whoever’s hands and in whatever circumstances.

You also stated that “… after the publication of this (Manuila/ Filderman) paper … nobody spoke about that matter for almost twenty years, when suddenly … the figure (of 15,000) rose abruptly to what I would call stage two (250,000) …” Actually, the estimates at Rumanian Jewish losses did not increase steadily following the publication of the Manuila/Filderman report in 1957. The highest estimate of Rumanian Jewish losses (pre-1940 borders) that I have seen is 530,000. This estimate was made by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine in April 1946, that is, eleven years, before the publication of the Manuila/Filderman report.

I believe that your unhappiness with my letter of 8 May is based on a misunderstanding. Please believe me when I stress that I completely share your concern for historical truth and objectivity. That’s why I've gone to the effort of writing to you about this matter. We all have a responsibility to keep modern historiography from being reduced to a form of mass media public relations. I hope very much that you wiH not remain upset with me over this matter, and, indeed, that we can work together for the common goal, of historical truth.

Sincerely,
Mark Weber

FRANK COMMENTS

I was a subscriber to The Journal almost from its inception, but let my subscription lapse after a year in protest at what I considered a good idea fouled up in its execution. I refer specifically to the “bad name” given The Journal — and the cause of historical revisionism in general — by the (I will be frank) amateurishness and ineptness of the then-editor, who I believe operated under a pseudonym.

With each issue I received during that first year of publication, I fairly cringed upon reading the “A Note from the Editor” section, which he seemed to delight in using as a forum for self-aggrandizement. Was he a columnist for a public secondary school newspaper, or the editor of a historical journal that was striving for academic recognition?

It was embarrassing, I recall, to show these journals to people whom I hoped to influence, only to have them chuckle.

And so I resolved to have no more to do with The Journal. But after a year of not knowing what was going on, I chanced recently to come across copies of both the Spring and Summer 1982 issues, and I must say I was pleased indeed. I like the new format, the larger size, and most importantly, the more restrained scholarly tone. It will help out a lot in winning over to our cause more new people, and in finally allowing those leaning toward us already to be more readily able to identify publicly with you without the embarrassment of having to associate their names with the polemicisms of your former editor.

So please again accept my order for a subscription!

Rederick Botha
Johannesburg, S. Africa