Scott, my hat is off to you! You proved yourself

The internet and can be a very dangerous place. What just happened here is reminiscent of my February trip to CR which I took with a girlfriend who is an internet addict. She likes to think of herself as an historian and an intellectual but nothing could be farther from the truth. One day in CR she tells me that there is a new version of the Holocaust; one that disputes everything we have heretofore known about this event. The new version is that only 800,000 people died, and those that died in the camps died of natural causes, and there weren’t any ovens or gas chambers. I told her to knock it off or I would kick her out of the car. But every day she pounded me with new information that would prove the Holocaust was a Zionist plot to get Israel. When I got home in March I found out that all her information came from a neo-Nazi website and some extreme right wing crackpot named Dr. Robert Faurisson who writes for this pseudo-schloarly rag called the Institute for Historical Review, which is a front for neo-Nazi ideals. When I pointed that out to her, she refused to believe that I was right and she was wrong. She told me it was unfortunate that I couldn’t incorporate another view of this historical event into my thinking! Needless to say, I’ve not spoken to her or seen her since, and nor will I. If you are not discerning and able to trace the statements back to their origin, or understand the motive and agenda behind what was written, I can see how many seemingly intelligent people are sucked into the out and out lies that are posted on the Internet. There are some very scholarly articles posted there that are pure B.S. as we just saw. So I guess it’s caveat emptor on the internet now too!! And yes, Scott, you handled yourself very well in the face of that ridiculous assault. Kudos to you!!

Yep, Keith, I look forward to a very uncomplicated life in Costa Rica, away from all this “crap.” Marvin Gaye was right — “People say believe half of what you see, Son, and none of what you hear” and we should keep that in mind when we read the “truth” on the Internet.

FYI:

“During the second world war, one of the atrocities was systematically killing 12,000,000 people.
The recent opening of the archives held in the German town of Bad Arolsen took over 60 years to accomplish.
This allows historians and survivors access to some 30 million to 50 million Nazi documents on the 17 million Jews and enslaved laborers who were either persecuted or slain by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.”

Just the facts folks. Nothing else.

Copyrighted 2006 material from a forthcoming book written by this writer.

Edited on Jul 20, 2006 23:51

“The lessons of history are soon forgotten unless kept alive. For the first time in history, an ethnic/religious minority is making a conscious effort to help humanity remember the past so it does not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Your posting proves the necessity of this idea, as most did not know or do not want to know that history repeats itself. Maybe one day we will learn we are all blood and flesh, brothers and sisters of the familiy called Humanity.
Thank you for supplying the proof of the importance for keeping the truths of history alive, so war may one day no longer exist. Thank the Jews for supplying us with a collective consciousness / awareness and the angst that goes with such an onerous task.
‘He who kills another, it is as if is he has killed a world. He who saves another, it is as if he has saved a world.'”

Edited on Jul 22, 2006 13:46

Your remarks above are not only well written but are absolutely on the bulls-eye. I fear for the sentas of the worlds who hold firmly to their incorrect and revisionist history (e.g. Germany did not start the two World Wars). They are surely doomed to repeat the mistakes of their forefathers. I also fear all attempts to either deny or downplay the Holocaust by pointing to more modern atrocities as some kind of example that the Germans who murdered the countless millions of Jews, gypsies, clergy, homosexuals and political activists were really not such bad fellows after all. I can not tell you the literally dozens of times I had to listen to my German neighbors tell me the wonderful things Hitler had accomplished for Germany (building the autobahns, etc.) as if that somehow ameliorated even one iota the horror of the Holocaust. Yes, I am for getting along with all my brothers and sisters on this planet but not at the expense of clear thinking and a healthy sense of history. Thanks for pointing this out to all of us.