Pressac/Igounet - Pressac capitulated to nothing

[PLAYWRIGHT]

I know that some of you have read the whole thing in German, but English speakers have been left out in the cold.

Attached here for your viewing, is my French to English translation of Valerie Ingounet’s Interview with Jean-Claude Pressac

It contains a number of surprises.

1. Perhaps most important, if you read the entire interview, you’ll discover that Robert Faurisson’s claim that Pressac “capitulated” to revisionism is not true.

Ten Years Ago, Jean-Claude Pressac's Capitulation
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/FaurisArch/RF050615.html

Some of you will be disturbed, as I was, to discover that Faurisson took the last three paragraphs of the interview completely out of context. Pressac capitulated to nothing. Was Faurisson just grasping at straws?

2. Pressac’s contempt for revisionists is matched by his contempt for traditionalists. He discovered irrational attitudes everywhere with established “Holocaust scholars”. His comments on the corruption that life in academia creates are interesting, because the right-wing here in the U.S. says exactly the same things. If he was still alive, I could very much see Pressac as a guest on “The O’Reilly Factor”, agreeing with Bill O’Reilly that university professors are a bunch of “pinheads”.

3. The total number of Jews killed at Auschwitz, the Reinhardt camps, Majdanek and Chelmo by Pressac’s count, comes to 1,310,000. Perhaps too high for revisionists, much too low for traditionalists. Pressac’s numbers are not consistent with a national policy directed towards exterminating Jews. Pressac’s figures come to 40.31% of the traditionalist numbers, which, if you apply that to the 6,000,000 number, comes to a Jewish death toll of 2,418,600. There is an interesting convergence with this number and a number advanced by Paul Rassinier, who estimated in The Drama Of The European Jews that total Jewish deaths during World War II were no more than 2,500,000. Pressac’s figures converge with Rassinier’s figures.

4. Pressac’s savage condemnation of the Klarsfelds – who subsidized and published him – are matched by other people who have known them. Apparently, they are a loathsome couple.

5. Pressac admits to an admiration of Carlo Mattogno and Arthur Butz that is not grudging, even while criticizing their work. In particular, he credits Mattogno with inventing a whole new form of research by examining the evolution of technologies used in historical circumstances.

6. Pressac’s discovery of the truth behind certain gassing rumors leads to surprises. He says there were no mass gassings at Dachau, but there were four homicidal deaths from tests of various blister gases in a completely different part of the crematory where, if you ask, you can still see the real gas chamber, as opposed to the Disneyland version they show to tourists.

7. Pressac comes up with a great comment. “It’s easy to demolish a testimony”. He’s got a point. Just because a testimony is “demolished” does not mean it is worthless. A testimony may contain exaggerations, confusions, illusions and even some outright fabrications, but if you can establish that a witness was really there, you’re obligated to find out what it was that the witness actually saw by comparing it to facts on the ground.

8. Pressac states that three pictures from “The Auschwitz Album” have criminal traces in the background, but I’ve only been able to find and reproduce one, a picture that has Krema III in it. In the background, sure enough, are piled up on the Krema grounds duffel bags and clothing, possibly from gassing victims, that look like they were recovered from the undressing cellar. BUT – what would the other two pictures be? I've looked in the background of all the other ones published online, but can't find anything suspicious.

9. Pressac references the “Album of the SS Construction Directorate”, which is new to me, though some of the pictures from it may be reproduced in Auschwitz: Technique And Operation Of The Gas Chambers. Pressac claims that 50 photos were secretly reproduced by the photo lab at Auschwitz (the first I’ve heard that there was such a thing) and found in a buried bottle after the war. Where is the complete album? Is it online?

Pressac was never a “denier” or “negationniste”, but he never stopped being a revisionist. Rassinier would probably have described him as being on “both sides of the barricade”, but as I read this interview, it hits me that he stood behind only one position, his own.

As I note in my introduction, I admire people like that. This interview invites no small amount of discussion, and I’d enjoy observations from English speakers who haven’t had a chance to read it.

[KostasL]

I know that some of you have read the whole thing in German, but English speakers have been left out in the cold.

Attached here for your viewing, is my French to English translation of Valerie Ingounet’s Interview with Jean-Claude Pressac

It contains a number of surprises.

1. Perhaps most important, if you read the entire interview, you’ll discover that Robert Faurisson’s claim that Pressac “capitulated” to revisionism is not true.

Ten Years Ago, Jean-Claude Pressac's Capitulation
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/FaurisArch/RF050615.html

Some of you will be disturbed, as I was, to discover that Faurisson took the last three paragraphs of the interview completely out of context. Pressac capitulated to nothing. Was Faurisson just grasping at straws?

2. Pressac’s contempt for revisionists is matched by his contempt for traditionalists. He discovered irrational attitudes everywhere with established “Holocaust scholars”. His comments on the corruption that life in academia creates are interesting, because the right-wing here in the U.S. says exactly the same things. If he was still alive, I could very much see Pressac as a guest on “The O’Reilly Factor”, agreeing with Bill O’Reilly that university professors are a bunch of “pinheads”.

3. The total number of Jews killed at Auschwitz, the Reinhardt camps, Majdanek and Chelmo by Pressac’s count, comes to 1,310,000. Perhaps too high for revisionists, much too low for traditionalists. Pressac’s numbers are not consistent with a national policy directed towards exterminating Jews. Pressac’s figures come to 40.31% of the traditionalist numbers, which, if you apply that to the 6,000,000 number, comes to a Jewish death toll of 2,418,600. There is an interesting convergence with this number and a number advanced by Paul Rassinier, who estimated in The Drama Of The European Jews that total Jewish deaths during World War II were no more than 2,500,000. Pressac’s figures converge with Rassinier’s figures.

4. Pressac’s savage condemnation of the Klarsfelds – who subsidized and published him – are matched by other people who have known them. Apparently, they are a loathsome couple.

5. Pressac admits to an admiration of Carlo Mattogno and Arthur Butz that is not grudging, even while criticizing their work. In particular, he credits Mattogno with inventing a whole new form of research by examining the evolution of technologies used in historical circumstances.

6. Pressac’s discovery of the truth behind certain gassing rumors leads to surprises. He says there were no mass gassings at Dachau, but there were four homicidal deaths from tests of various blister gases in a completely different part of the crematory where, if you ask, you can still see the real gas chamber, as opposed to the Disneyland version they show to tourists.

7. Pressac comes up with a great comment. “It’s easy to demolish a testimony”. He’s got a point. Just because a testimony is “demolished” does not mean it is worthless. A testimony may contain exaggerations, confusions, illusions and even some outright fabrications, but if you can establish that a witness was really there, you’re obligated to find out what it was that the witness actually saw by comparing it to facts on the ground.

8. Pressac states that three pictures from “The Auschwitz Album” have criminal traces in the background, but I’ve only been able to find and reproduce one, a picture that has Krema III in it. In the background, sure enough, are piled up on the Krema grounds duffel bags and clothing, possibly from gassing victims, that look like they were recovered from the undressing cellar. BUT – what would the other two pictures be? I've looked in the background of all the other ones published online, but can't find anything suspicious.

9. Pressac references the “Album of the SS Construction Directorate”, which is new to me, though some of the pictures from it may be reproduced in Auschwitz: Technique And Operation Of The Gas Chambers. Pressac claims that 50 photos were secretly reproduced by the photo lab at Auschwitz (the first I’ve heard that there was such a thing) and found in a buried bottle after the war. Where is the complete album? Is it online?

Pressac was never a “denier” or “negationniste”, but he never stopped being a revisionist. Rassinier would probably have described him as being on “both sides of the barricade”, but as I read this interview, it hits me that he stood behind only one position, his own.

As I note in my introduction, I admire people like that. This interview invites no small amount of discussion, and I’d enjoy observations from English speakers who haven’t had a chance to read it.

Thank you, for posting this.

[PatrickSMcNally]

Very interesting. Hopefully one day all of Pressac's contributions will be made available in English. But that said, some parts sounded CYA. Like this:

6. Pressac’s discovery of the truth behind certain gassing rumors leads to surprises. He says there were no mass gassings at Dachau, but there were four homicidal deaths from tests of various blister gases in a completely different part of the crematory where, if you ask, you can still see the real gas chamber, as opposed to the Disneyland version they show to tourists.

Hold the presses everyone! Pressac has figured where the real Dachau gas chamber is! It's not where they all said it was, it's over here! That sounds a bit too contrived for my tastes. It reminded me very much of Germar Rudolf's memorial comments about Pressac, which I stll think are probably on target:

http://vho.org/tr/2003/4/Graf426-432.html#ftn1

The Double Agent
By Germar Rudolf

In May of 1993 great doings were afoot at Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart. One of the young PhD candidates there had become involved in a scandal, which was making news throughout Germany. The name of the PdD candidate was Germar Rudolf, the author of these lines. My scandalous activity consisted of having prepared, at the request of the legal defense of Major General Otto Ernst Remer, an expert report on the so-called 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz, in which I arrived at the conclusion that it was physically impossible for mass gassings to have taken place as reported by eyewitnesses. Shortly after Easter of 1993, Gen. Remer had sent thousands of copies of this report to prominent politicians, jurists, historians, chemists and the various media in Germany. As a result of this, every lobbyist and pressure group imaginable demanded that my activities as expert witness be suppressed by every means available. In that memorable springtime I received a number of telephone calls from various news media at my worksite, which displeased the business office of the Institute. The identities of the various callers and contents of conversations are of no interest here, with one exception: when the gentleman on the other end identified himself as Jean-Claude Pressac. He asked for my private telephone number, which I politely declined to give him.

I suggest that he communicate with me in writing. To this he replied that, for reasons of security, he preferred to not communicate with me in writing, because it would be dangerous for him to do so. Then he warned me that I too should be on guard. Concerning the 'Holocaust' in particular, he advised me to avoid challenging every aspect of it at one time. He said that in dealing with 'Holocaust' the only hope for success without risking personal danger was to attack it piecemeal, one aspect at a time.

Since that telephone conversation, I have been convinced that Jean- Claude Pressac believed that we revisionists are correct in principle. In view of the overwhelming might of the exterminationists, however, he arrived early at the conclusion that the 'system' had to be fought from within. His apparent defection to the ranks of 'the enemy' and service to the cause of exterminationism was his version of salami tactics. His plan was to use the 'system' in order to extract one concession after another.

If we consider his publications in chronological order, it is obvious that with each publication, Pressac came closer to one or another aspect of revisionism. His first step was simply to make public discussion of the subject possible; his second, to make the 'system' acknowledge the priority of scientific evidence over eyewitness testimony; his third, to force it to acknowledge the contradictions inherent in such testimony. With every new publication he also reduced the number of victims, while his evaluation of eyewitness testimony grew more critical. Finally, after attacking the very foundations of the 'Auschwitz Myth,' he turned upon the other so-called 'extermination camps' (see page 431.)

After the publication of his second book in 1993, he must have gradually grown frightened, since subsequent revisions of the book made him many enemies. His telephone conversation with me was not the only place where he revealed his fears. Carlo Mattogno reports that he broke off all contacts with him at that time. Prof. Faurisson reports that he suffered a near collapse during Faurisson's trial in 1995, begging the judge to excuse him from answering Faurisson's questions:[1]

"You must understand that I have only one life. You must understand that I am alone in my battle."

He refused to testify because he clearly saw that he was completely isolated and his life was in danger. The only explanation for this is the fact that a candid statement before the French court would have had severe consequences since it would have been revisionist in nature.

And so, even though his writings are scientifically suspect, Pressac was without doubt the most politically successful revisionist to date. He was in fact our double agent.

Many thanks, Jean-Claude!

[1] R. Faurisson, "My Revisionist Method," Journal for Historical Review 21(2) (2002), p. 7.

[PLAYWRIGHT]

Can't seem to find it online. If I can get my hands on a copy of Pressac's article in Historama #34, 1995, where he argues that the Reinhardt camps started out as transit camps, I'll cheerfully translate and post that too. Anybody? Our French friends?