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Welcome to the Smith's Report website.

Here is the lead from the most recent issue of Smith's Report.

--Bradley Smith

Issue #152 | July 2008

ONE NAME WITH PROOF

The Campus Project

PROFESSOR ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Lady Michelle Renouf alerted me to the fact that Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz had twice mentioned Ernst Zundel and me during a talk he gave on "Holocaust denial" at the University of Baltimore School of Law on 04 May. She gave me a link where I could view 34 minutes of the talk on the Internet via YouTube. I was busy with other stuff and didn't look at it for a week or so. It's a straightforward talk by a gifted and occasionally charming fellow committed to the concept of the "unique monstrosity" of the Germans. The talk compromises him intellectually and spiritually in interesting ways.

Dershowitz divides Holocaust "deniers" into two broad categories, those who deny the gas chambers, and those who do not. Early on in the talk Dershowitz names Zundel and Smith as examples of those who deny the gas chambers. They are very foolish fellows, because only fools would question the gas chambers, and no one takes them seriously. Thus they play no role in the "conversation" about the Holocaust on campus or anywhere else.

Those who do not deny the gas chambers but at the same time "minimize" the Holocaust, particularly by questioning the value of eyewitness testimony, are the most difficult to deal with because these folk in the main are academics and are, in fact, part of the conversation about the Holocaust. These "minimizers" who dismiss much or all of the survivor eyewitness testimony, must be taken seriously because they are in academia and include the likes of Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Raul Hilberg and various Israeli academics, among others. Dershowitz does not refer to the fact that all eyewitness survivor testimony about gas chambers has been shown to either be false, or testimony that cannot be proven to be true. No exception.

Dershowitz's talk featured two of the monstrous crimes committed by the Germans. Germans rounded up all the Rhodes Jews, simple farmers and a community beloved by those among whom they had lived for close to 2,000 years, shipped them by boat and train to Auschwitz where they were all killed. "All of them." And then Dershowitz talked about how it was the children who were killed first at Auschwitz. Always, the children came first. The purpose was to destroy the genetic future of the Jewish people. Get rid of the genes, you have gotten rid of the Jews.

As O'Keefe pointed out to me, the obvious did not occur to this Harvard professor. If the Germans had wanted to destroy the Jewish gene stock they would have killed the "breeders" first â€" those who were actually capable of transmitting their genes to their lady friends in a historically normative manner, rather than saving these folk as "workers."

I emailed Professor Dersho-witz and copied my letter to him to 180 of his colleagues at the Harvard Law School and to other academics on that renowned campus. In the first draft I thought to include the Rhodes Jews story as well as the killing-the-children-first accusation, but decided to focus on one of his bloody fantasies rather than both.

Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law                                                      19 June 2008
Harvard University
Dear Professor Dershowitz:

I watched you speak (thanks to YouTube) on 04 May at the symposium titled "Defending Truth: Legal and Moral Imperatives of Holocaust Denial." I understand that the event was organized by the U. of Baltimore School of Law and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

I agree with you that questions about the Holocaust should be open to the "marketplace of ideas." Since February I have been asking academics to provide me with the name of "one person, with proof, who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz." The first professor to whom I addressed the question was Deborah Lipstadt of Emory U., the lady whose virtues you speak of with such enthusiasm during your talk. In the event, Professor Lipstadt did not respond.

Since then I have asked hundreds of academics that one question. The question does not claim that the gas chambers did not exist, and does not make a claim that the "Holocaust" did not happen. It is a very simple, direct question. To date, not one academic has provided me with such a name, and none has attempted to do so.

For example, I have written the Director of one of the agencies that sponsored the symposium where you spoke, Dr. Paul Shapiro, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Could he provide me with the name of "one person, with proof …" He has maintained the same discreet silence in response to this simple inquiry that most all others have used to â€" how shall I put it â€" to perhaps evade the question.

In your talk at the U. Baltimore symposium you suggest that Holocaust minimizers like Hilberg, Chomsky, and Finkelstein are more difficult to deal with because, unlike straight out "deniers," their writings are not based on "the existence or non-existence of gas chambers." You ask, "Why are gas chambers so important?" And you respond to your question by saying: "If there were gas chambers, everything else from the [Holocaust] narrative follows." The implication is, if there were no gas chambers, everything else in the Holocaust narrative would "falter." I think you are right about this.

In your talk you speak movingly, and I believe sincerely, about the "importance" of the mass murder of Jewish children in the genocide of the Jews. You argue that "the children had to be killed first" because they were "the genetic future of the Jewish people." And: "They were the genes. That was the genocide."

Professor Dershowitz: can you provide the name, with proof, of one Jewish child who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?

Professor Dershowitz: do you believe it is morally right for academics to forward the charge against Germans of having murdered a million or so civilians in gas chambers at Auschwitz, and at the same time act out the role of "bystanders" by refusing to commit themselves to providing the name of one person â€" one child or one adult, with proof â€" who was murdered in one of those rooms?

Thank you for your time.

Bradley R. Smith

NOTE:  I will copy this letter to some of your colleagues at Harvard Law School and to other parties who I believe might be interested.

Continued in the July 2008 issue of Smith's Report. (http://www.smithsreport.com)

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Professor Alan Dershowitz and the Name of One Child, with Proof

Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law
Harvard University

19 June 2008

Dear Professor Dershowitz:

I watched you speak (thanks to YouTube) on 04 May at the symposium titled "Defending Truth: Legal and Moral Imperatives of Holocaust Denial." I understand that the event was organized by the U. of Baltimore School of Law and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

I agree with you that questions about the Holocaust should be open to the "marketplace of ideas." Since February I have been asking academics to provide me with the name of "one person, with proof, who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz." The first professor to whom I addressed the question was Deborah Lipstadt of Emory U., the lady whose virtues you speak of with such enthusiasm during your talk. In the event, Professor Lipstadt did not respond.

Since then I have asked hundreds of academics that one question. The question does [not] claim that the gas chambers did not exist, and does not make a claim that the "Holocaust" did not happen. It is a very simple, direct question. To date, not one academic has provided me with such a name, and none has attempted to do so.

For example, I have written the Director of one of the agencies that sponsored the symposium where you spoke, Dr. Paul Shapiro, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advance Holocaust Studies. Could he provide me with the name of "one person, with proof …" He has maintained the same discreet silence in response to this simple inquiry that most all others have used to â€" how shall I put it â€" to perhaps evade the question.

In your talk at the U. Baltimore symposium you suggest that Holocaust minimizers like Hilberg, Chomsky, and Finkelstein are more difficult to deal with because, unlike straight out "deniers," their writings are not based on "the existence or non-existence of gas chambers." You ask, "Why are gas chambers so important?" And you respond to your question by saying: "If there were gas chambers, everything else from the [Holocaust] narrative follows." The implication is, if there were no gas chambers, everything else in the Holocaust narrative would "falter." I think you are right about this.

In your talk you speak movingly, and I believe sincerely, about the "importance" of the mass murder of Jewish children in the genocide of the Jews. You argue that "the children had to be killed first" because they were "the genetic future of the Jewish people." And: "They were the genes. That was the genocide."

Professor Dershowitz: can you provide the name, with proof, of one Jewish child who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?

Professor Dershowitz: do you believe it is morally right for academics to forward the charge against Germans of having murdered a million or so civilians in gas chambers at Auschwitz, and at the same time act out the role of "bystanders" by refusing to commit themselves to providing the name of one person â€" one child or one adult, with proof â€" who was murdered in one of those rooms?

Thank you for your time.

Bradley R. Smith

NOTE: I will copy this letter to some of your colleagues at Harvard Law School and to other parties who I believe might be interested. Posted by Bradley R. Smith at 10:12 PM 15 comments