Bright's Blog

11 comments from readers

knave
20 May 2008 at 17:24

Can I ask why can't you be holocaust denier.

The overwelming evidence is that there was a holocaust.

A few individuals saying it did not occur will not dent that consensus.

You ban them, people will think that there is a conspiracy.

Face them on TV with the evidence.

As for banning TV stations or newspapers is a dangerous path.

Martin Bright
20 May 2008 at 22:56

I haven't called for the banning of anything. I have simply pointed out that Press TV would not be tolerated in many other countries. Of course, the irony is that it would not be tolerated in Iran

SAS
23 May 2008 at 23:55

The idea of banning Press TV is a totally unacceptable one and should be eschewed by anyone who believes in freedom of the press.

What is most unfortunate is the fact the Press TV speaks of ``the West'' as if it were a monolith.

Surely it ought to recognize that ``the West'' is, in fact made up of many nations that have their own independent legal systems. Denying the Holocaust may be an offence in Germany and Austria, but not in the United Kingdom. To fail to recognize the disparity in legal systems between the nations of Europe is as silly as lumping all Islamic/Eastern legal systems into the same boat.

Emmanuel
24 May 2008 at 06:39

Could 'knave' please enlighten us and let us have the overwhelming evidence he mentions? Can he, for example, shed more light on the crematorium at Auschwitz which was built in 1949?

Emm

Ali
26 May 2008 at 13:12

Dear Martin;

I am as an midddleast citizen who think wesern democracy is good but I really wondering why talking about an historical event which affect whole world for the last 60 years can not be discussed even by Scientist in University regardless of the true or false hypothesis. Recently, you wrote very harshley about PressTV which allow pro Israeli and even necon. and anti iranian say their views. I am wondering if you are independent journalist or not. I think newstateman journalist are more open minded and independent than you.

Regards

Raj

astro3
28 May 2008 at 16:15

Dear Martin,

You describe me as a Holocaust denier. Could you very kindly tell me what ‘The Holocaust’ was and how exactly I am denying it? I’m receiving some quite strong moral damnation from even old friends, in response to what I’d hope was a physical/chemical argument. So this clarification would help.

You quote me as saying ‘"that the alleged massacre of Jewish people by gassing during World War II was scientifically impossible". Its true that on that Iranian program I did remark about the kinetics of gas diffusion, that it would not permit the gassing scenarios to which Rudolf Hoss ‘confessed’ at Nuremberg: viz that up to 2000 persons were crowded into a chamber maybe 30 foot long, Zyklon-B was dropped in through the roof via cylinders onto the ground, say three of them, then in 15-20 minutes everyone was dead. No heating, no fans. It takes a couple of hours for the hydrogen cyanide to evaporate from the Zyklon-B pellets, and no way could it have diffused throughout that large chamber to reach lethal levels in the time specified by Hoss, or anything at all resembling it. Especially on a cold winter’s day. I reckon only a few people around the piles of Zyklon-B would have died on the ‘Hoss scenario.’ Most of the world seems to believe in this process, characterized by its absolute physical impossibility, and it has been of late re-described without alteration in 'Auschwitz' by Lawrence Rees (2005).

Furthermore, there is not the residual cyanide in the walls of the ‘Krema’ (crematoria buildings, either shower-rooms or morgues) as measured at Auschwitz, to allow repeated cyanide gassings to have occurred. My whole case is based upon the concordance between the two chemical surveys, of Fred Leuchter and Germar Rudolf (1988 and 1991). See my essay, www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrnkwalls.html . The levels are simply not significantly higher than samples from ‘control’ walls from living quarters etc. The chemical evidence suggests that the Zyklon-B was used just where the German design-plans say they were used, viz the delousing chambers. Everyone screams at me that I must be a Neo-Nazi for saying this, but, Martin, am I not allowed as a science historian to reach a view about the functioning of certain chambers in Poland 66 years ago, where lots of cyanide gas was used, without having any political agenda?

NB my other more general essay, that got me thrown out of UCL (so my head of department, of Science and Technology Studies, told me) is ‘The Auschwitz gas-chamber illusion’ www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrillusion.html. In a nutshell, the ‘illusion’ here was the hoax perpetrated at Nuremberg, IMO, whereby all use of Zyklon-B was presumed to be for human exptermination, ignoring the manifest use of it for the delousing chambers as part of the struggle against typhus. A lot of people don’t realize that these chambers still exist today, and have their walls blue due to saturation with iron-cyanide from sixty years ago.

I will be very happy if anyone wants to comment, or indeed condemn me, so long as it is based on these essays that I have written, and not on unattributed web-gossip, of which there is quite a bit. I’m not competent to make any general statements about European history but this period was surely the most traumatic for European jews in their entire history so I’d have thought ‘the Holocaust’ was a reasonable term for it.

knave
02 June 2008 at 17:27

I do feel that the attack on Kollerstrom was umitagated censorship by the likes of cohen and bright.

Especially if Astro3, who I assume is kollerstrom has only pointed out the scientific arguments against the numbers killed by gassing.

Although there are many other ways of elimanating large number of people.

Hitchens has defended Irvings right to publish and he is correct to do so.

Emmanuel there is evidence for the holocaust. The written statements number in their thousands. It would be impossible to fabricate.Also the Nazi propaganda and films show their contempt for jews and other non aryans. They were looked upon as animals. They were dehumanised and it is the logical step that the nazis would iniatiate a final solution

Also Martin don't play dumb, you more than hint at banning Press Tv or articles by John Pilger, and I do not wish to live Iran, no thanks, nor do i wish to live in the southern states fed on their diet of creationism, homophobia and racism by their TV news, Fox news ( Yours and Cohen's favourite station).

Dogsmilk
02 June 2008 at 20:00

It's simply extraordinary that Nick Kollerstrom pops up here yet again acting like he's done some kind of 'research' (as opposed to simply browsing the standard Holocaust denier websites) when he's consistently refused to respond to challenges to defend his view against people with expertise on the subject and simply responded to some of my own challenges by calling for me to be...censored!

http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=14359&post...

Hussein
08 June 2008 at 16:52

Press TV's website has published another article attacking the holocaust deniers. So give them credit where credit's due. They are giving both sides a platform. What d'ya reckon Martin?

davidrmiller
30 June 2008 at 12:14

Dear Martin,

I'm making a film partially funded by press tv. I'm pleased to say that I have not encountered any problems dealing with them on an editorial front however I'm all too awair of the irony here. That is, I'm a filmmaker who is passionate about civil and human rights working for a world news service financed by a regime that won't even afford it's own people free and fair media. Imagine me trying to pitch a film to Press TV about the beating and torture of student activists in Iran. My feeling at the outset was that as long as my own film wasn't censored, it wasn't a problem. After all, the more viewers the better i felt. Do you believe that journalists and filmmakers at my level, have a responsibility to choose who screens their work? One could ask the same about Fox news I guess!

quarsan
24 July 2008 at 07:06

Astro3/ Nicholas Kollerstrom,

You ask "Could you very kindly tell me what ‘The Holocaust’ was and how exactly I am denying it?"

Here's your answer. On our website you wrote:

"Hi, I note you seem to object to my having defended the proposition that: no German ever put a Jew into a gas chamber. You call that Holocaust Denial, well I’m proud to be associated with it. I’m happy to defend, it any time, any place. It happens to be true!"

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2014

I hope this helps,

Quarsan