An Exchange Between Prof. George Saltzman and Prof. Robert Faurisson

[Thanks to Michael Santamauro and Reporters Notebook for this.]


Oaxaca, Mexico, Thursday 17 September 2009

Dear Thomas Dalton and Michael Santomauro,

Today Michael, you notified me that you added me to your Reporters Notebook mailing list, and sent me three other e-mails as well. I hope this is not the beginning of a flood of e-mails. One of them announced Thomas Dalton's book, [where I found]the following:

Preeminent Holocaust expert Raul Hilberg said: "What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. [These measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus -- mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy."

Please let me have a specific (Title and page number) reference for this quote. I have, and have read cover to cover, The Destruction of the European Jews (Student Edition), by Raul Hilberg, published in 1985 in the U.S. by Holmes & Meier. Thank you.

Sincerely,

George Salzman

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Sept. 18, 2009

Dear Michael,

The source of that statement of Raul Hilberg is to be found in: George DeWan, “The Holocaust In Perspective”, Newsday (Long Island, NY), 23 February 1983, p. II/3.

On 16 January 1985, R. Hilberg confirmed those words during his cross-examination at the first Zündel trial in Toronto, Ontario (Canada); see transcript, p. 846-848.

He repeated his strange if not metaphysical theory (but with other words) in The Destruction of the European Jews, [second] revised and definitive [sic!] edition, New York, London, Holmes & Meier, 1985, in his chapter on “The Structure of Destruction”, especially on p. 53, 55 and 62.

On p. 53 he said there was “no basic plan”.

On top of p. 55 he wrote there had been: “Written directives not published” / “Broad authorizations to subordinates not published” / “Oral directives and authorizations” / “Basic understandings of officials resulting in decisions not requiring orders or explanations” (emphasis mine).

On the same page he explained: “In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization.”

On the same page, he also specified: “no one agency was charged with the whole operation [of destruction]” and “no single organization directed or coordinated the entire process.”

On p. 62 he concluded: “The destruction of the Jews was thus the work of a far-flung administrative machine. This apparatus took each step in turn. The initiation as well as the implementation of decisions was largely in its hand. No special agency was created and no special budget was devised to destroy the Jews of Europe. Each organization was to play a specific role in the process, and each was to find the means to carry out its task.”

Please, acknowledge receipt of this message.

My next trial (because of what happened at the “Zenith Palace” with Dieudonné on December 26, 2008) will take place in Paris on September 22 at 13:30. The result will be known about one month later.

Best wishes.
R. Faurisson, September 18, 2009

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