Except for the introduction, this book is not copyrighted. It may be copied by anyone so long as full credit is given to the publisher:
CENTER FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW 132 THIRD STREET, S.E.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20003
Introduction Copyright 1993 by Mark Lane [not included in web version]
Printed in the U. S. A. Second printing
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
ISBN: 0-935036-48-2
DEDICATION
To my late father, T. M. Piper.
A proud Marine, my father survived bloody combat in World War II, convinced he was fighting for his country. Many years later, as a result of his careful study of the works of revisionist historians, he came to realize that he was a survivor of a war that need not -- and should not -- have been fought. Along with his three brothers and a host of friends, my father marched off to war. He was one of the lucky ones who came home again, having fought to destroy what he then believed to be the perpetrators of what we now call "The Holocaust."
In my final conversation with my father just three hours before he died on July 21, 1990 -- he and I discussed a recently-revealed "detail" from the history of the Holocaust: the intriguing determination by the Polish authorities that -- contrary to everything we had been told by the "official" histories -- four million people were not "gassed" at Auschwitz.
In fact, the Polish authorities had finally decided, "only" some 1.5 million died there. Just a detail, of course, but one of many that, taken together, cast a grim light on "the facts" about "The Holocaust."To Dr. Marie Zittel.
A proud German-American, "Aunt Marie" is one of the growing number of grass-roots revisionists across America and around the globe who are helping many others learn the real truth about the events of our past, the efforts of the Establishment truth-distorters notwithstanding.And to Willis and Elisabeth Carto.
Without them, there simply would be no historical revisionist movement of any consequence in the world today. They have struggled -- against sometimes incredible obstacles -- to keep historical revisionism alive. And it is very much alive.
A NOTE TO THE READER FROM THE PUBLISHER:
You hold in your hands a "burned book" that was not supposed to have ever been published. It miraculously survived a series of events that could only have been orchestrated by forces with a great interest in keeping highly significant news from the public -- the news that in a court of law one of the world's most famous "Holocaust survivors" was proven a fraud. This was the greatest victory, in spite of all the obstacles, that the Institute for Historical Review and perhaps the cause of holocaust revisionism, had ever had, following a protracted legal struggle that lasted over ten years.
An author commissioned to write the book immediately after the victory, September 19, 1991, repeatedly reported "progress" in the task although after more than a year and a half not a line was written. Then, when it was finally written by another author, and readied for the printer, a second duplicitous employee of the Institute, although directed to get the book into print as soon as possible and agreeing to do it, figuratively if not literally "burned" the book.
This edition was pieced together from the odds and ends remaining in the possession of the three authors, Mark Lane, Michael Collins Piper and Willis Carto, and is substantially the same book suppressed by the perfidious employees of the Institute for Historical Review.
Introduction by Mark Lane ... [not included in web version] ......Page i Preface: The Cult of Death ...................................Page 1 Chapter One A Shy and Retiring Fellow .......................... Page 5 Chapter Two What is Revisionism? ................................Page 13 Chapter Three Doubting "History " .................................Page 19 Chapter Four The Reward Offer.....................................Page 29 Chapter Five Who is Mel Mermelstein? .............................Page 33 Chapter Six A Nuisance Suit......................................Page 41 Chapter Seven The Offensive Escalates .............................Page 49 Chapter Eight Not Reasonably Subject to Dispute? ................. Page 53 Chapter Nine A Media Victory......................................Page 59 Chapter Ten Another Reward Offer ............................... Page 65 Chapter Eleven Terror...............................................Page 69 Chapter Twelve The Settlement ......................................Page 75 Chapter Thirteen Damage Control.......................................Page 83 Chapter Fourteen Explaining the Facts ............................... Page 89 Chapter Fifteen Mel Strikes Again ...................................Page 95 Chapter Sixteen Mel's Biggest Mistake ...............................Page 103 Chapter Seventeen A Prevaricator Under Oath .......................... Page 107 Chapter Eighteen A Vexatious Litigant ................................Page 115 Chapter Nineteen Judicial Notice, Again ..............................Page 125 Chapter Twenty An "Expert" Witness ................................ Page 131 Chapter Twenty-One The Movie Star ......................................Page 137 Chapter Twenty-Two Countdown to Trial ..................................Page 147 Chapter Twenty-Three The Beginning of the End ............................Page 155 Chapter Twenty-Four The "Borking" of Mermelstein........................ Page 171 Chapter Twenty-Five The Case Unravels....................................Page 177 Chapter Twenty-Six The Judge Speaks ....................................Page 187 Chapter Twenty-Seven Surrender ...........................................Page 193 Chapter Twenty-Eight An Unpublicized Victory .............................Page 197 Chapter Twenty-Nine The Soap Lady .......................................Page 201 Chapter Thirty The Triumph of Historical Revisionism ...............Page 221 Afterword Why Is 'The Holocaust' Important? by W. A. Carto ......................................Page 227 Reference Notes......................................Page 235
Introduction by Mark Lane Copyright Mark Lane, 1993
[not included in web version. Introduction contains first 9 footnotes.]
Every schoolchild has been instructed time and again that "Six Million Jews were gassed by Adolf Hitler." Every school-child "knows" that the Germans turned the bodies of dead Jews into soap. Every schoolchild has heard about the lampshades made out of human skin. Every schoolchild ... The list goes on and on.
Yet, as Hans Schmidt, one of the most respected researchers into the truth about the Holocaust has pointed out, if you ask an American schoolboy how many American soldiers died fighting in World War II, he won't be able to answer the question. "Why?" asks Schmidt. (The number of Americans who died in World War II, by the way, is 407,316. An additional 786,301 were wounded -- including this author's own father -- but survived.)
The Holocaust -- however defined -- and the remarkable legends which surround that period in history have become an enduring part of the public consciousness as a result -- largely -- of the constant media focus on the subject. Yet, a number of very real holocausts -- including several substantially larger than the Holocaust which is said to have happened to the Jews during World War II -- are virtually unknown and certainly ignored.
How many Americans know that a minimum of some 70 million people --probably many more -- died during Communist rule in the U.S.S.R? Or that 63 million Chinese died under communist rule?
What about the massive and ongoing genocide in Africa by a series of tinhorn dictators who have ruled over the beleaguered nations on that continent since the end of the colonial period?
What about the 200,000 German civilians who were killed during the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II?
Or, as Black historians are now asking, what about the holocaust of millions of Blacks who died en route to America during the slave trade and under slavery?
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All of these "holocausts" really happened, but knowledge of their place in history is scant, at best. And, ironically, the list appearing here is by no means complete.
The alleged mass extermination of the Jewish people has taken on a life of its own and has also, in its own way, become a focal point -- the defining factor -- in the rich history of the
Jewish people, much to the distress of many Jews in particular who are concerned that their own heritage and accomplishments have been lost in the shuffle.
"The centrality of the Holocaust for American Jews," wrote one Jewish dissenter, Leon Wieseltier, "amounts virtually to a cult of death ... How many American Jews," he
asks, "know anything about the Jewish medieval poets, the wealth of the culture, the Jewish philosophers?" 10
"The Holocaust" has also been the linchpin upon which the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States has brow-beaten Congress into soaking the American taxpayers for U.S. foreign
aid giveaways to Israel, not to mention requiring unswerving congressional support for any and all actions by the state of Israel.
The direct result of this, of course, has been that virtually the entire Arab world -- and, indeed, the entire Islamic world -- is now steadfastly allied against the United States, putting
Americans at risk wherever they go throughout the world -- not to mention their risk to being victims of terrorism at home. This all a consequence of the focus on the Holocaust.
Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, an American Jewish historian who was perhaps the earliest prominent critic of America's biased U.S. Middle East policy, has scored what he has called
"Holocaustomania" on the part of those exploiting the Holocaust as a political tool to advance Israel's demands upon the taxpayers. The Holocaust, he says, "is a cult, and the reigning cult" 11 among those obsessed with Israel.
When Congress was debating an arms sale to Saudi Arabia, the Israeli lobby flooded Capitol Hill with copies of a fiction book entitled "Holocaust," based on a much-ballyhooed television presentation by the same name. The point being made was that "another Holocaust" could happen -- this time in the Middle East if Israel's perceived enemies received U.S. arms.
Preface - 3
It was perhaps inevitable that the repeated re-telling of the events of the Holocaust would invite inquiry -- inquiry into the specific details of the specific stories that had been told time
and again. And as time passed, the old adage that "truth will out" proved correct. Much of what had been said about the Holocaust proved simply not true.
Over a period of years, a small but growing group of intrepid researchers and historians from around the world began delving into the legends of the Holocaust and publishing
their findings, much to the dismay of those who had so much to gain -- and who did indeed gain -- from their exploitation of the Holocaust.
The driving force behind the research into the real facts -- not the legends -- about the Holocaust was the Institute for Historical Review -- the IHR. It was the IHR that emerged as
the driving force behind this new endeavor by serious historians to bring the historical record into accord with the facts. The IHR agreed with the thinking of Yehuda Bauer, the scholar of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem: according to Bauer, "It's the historian's task to examine myths," 12x and, if necessary, to explode them. Bauer himself upset many of his fellow Israelis and Jews everywhere when he said that the number of Jewish victims at Auschwitz was, in fact, far less than the officially accepted figures. Bringing the historical record into accord with the facts could be an unpleasant task, as Bauer found out. Many Holocaust survivors, it seemed, were incapable -- or unwilling -- to accept the facts as the historians (such as those the IHR) were uncovering them.
It was one Holocaust survivor in particular who made it his virtual life mission to extinguish the work of the IHR and the very existence of the IHR itself. This was Mel Mermelstein.
Mermelstein, in his heyday, achieved much fame and glory -- and immense financial gain -- from his clever and calculating exploitation of his own experiences (and non
experiences, so to speak) during the Holocaust. He proclaimed himself to be his own "best witness" as to what happened during the Holocaust, but, as the IHR discovered, that was not the case at all.
That the American public is now beginning to recognize, according to one controversial poll, that the tales of the Holocaust are indeed a matter of controversy -- subject to question
-- is a tribute to the work of the IHR and its associates in the historical revisionist movement. 13
This new skepticism, likewise, is also a direct consequence of the false tale spinning and vainglorious prevarication by people such as Mel Mermelstein, whom, the IHR had concluded, was a demonstrable fraud.
It is ironic, indeed, that one such as Mermelstein -- a man who placed the Holocaust as the central defining experience in his own existence -- would have been the one person who, in
his own fashion, helped bring about the ultimate triumph of historical revisionism.
This volume is a history of the strange events that took place over a twelve year period in which Mel Mermelstein sought, unsuccessfully, to bring the Institute for Historical
Review to its knees and deal a mortal blow to Holocaust revisionism. It is a story that needs to be told.
It was a sunny morning in downtown Los Angeles, nerve center of the entertainment industry. However, important business kept a handful of people -- including at least one
Hollywood celebrity -- inside on that beautiful late summer day, September 12, 1991.
Those unfortunate souls were confined between the windowless paneled walls of a courtroom high up on the seventeenth floor of the state superior court building towering
above the surrounding city. The parties in question were involved in a legal battle, a proverbial fight to the finish, following nearly eleven years of contentious and sometimes nasty litigation.
Judge Stephen Lachs of the California State Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles was presiding, and not with any particular pleasure. A no-nonsense jurist, Lachs had
earlier tried to get the parties -- including the aforementioned Hollywood celebrity -- to settle their dispute. It was to no avail. That's why the proceedings were underway.
On the witness stand was a graying, somewhat rumpled older gentleman. His haggard appearance, however, belied the fact that this man was very much a celebrity -- a glamorous
figure in his own peculiar right. In fact, his life story had been dramatized in a widely-publicized made-for-television film. Portraying him had been a popular star of television and the cinema whose face was known round the world.
This celebrated senior citizen, whose life and times had been memorialized on film, had also published his own autobiography. On the title page he billed himself as an "author and lecturer."
His numerous public pronouncements addressed one of the great controversies of the 20th century: the Holocaust of World War II, the endlessly reported genocide of some six
million Jews (some said even more) by the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler in Germany.
A self-described "survivor" of the Holocaust, this lecturer had spoken at scores of schools, colleges and public forums
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during the last two decades -- he was later to admit to roughly 350 orations in all -- his speeches publicized both in the United States and abroad. What's more, he was also the founder of a tax-exempt foundation that sponsored a traveling Holocaust museum, a house of horrors, some said, that belonged in a circus sideshow.
Banquets had been held in his honor. A prominent veteran member of the United States Senate had urged that the celebrity be appointed to a high-profile government commission post overseeing the creation of a taxpayer-financed "Holocaust Memorial Museum" in Washington, D.C. A foreign government had invited this celebrity -- the lone American -- to participate in an international forum on the Holocaust.
The wire services had publicized his doings across the nation -- and around the world -- and he'd been a guest on more than a few radio chat shows. His story had been featured in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, among other places. Newsweek magazine had even devoted a full page feature to his story complete with a large photo -- ten years previously.
Our witness, in short, was very much a celebrity indeed, very much a public figure, leading a multi-faceted life in the public eye. And he'd reaped benefits -- in more ways than one.
In his private life he was a reasonably happily married father of four children living in Long Beach, California. He wasn't a gambling kingpin, or an arms dealer or even a charter boat captain. He was a simple pallet manufacturer. His name was Melvin Mermelstein -- Mel for short.
However, it was Mel's misdeeds -- or misfortune -- or mistakes -- in his role as a Hollywood celebrity (perhaps even as a worldwide celebrity) -- that brought him to that Los Angeles courtroom that sunny September morning.
Mel was suing a publishing concern based in Southern California known as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR). Among other things Mel had charged the IHR with was libel (i.e. having published a false, malicious and defamatory statement about him). In one of its publications the IHR had called Mel a "demonstrable fraud."
Mel also took umbrage at references in the IHR publication to a particular group of people being "vainglorious
A Shy and Retiring Fellow? - 7
prevaricators" and "false tale spinners," although the references had not even referred specifically to Mel. (So wrapped up in his own celebrity, Mel assumed, apparently, that he himself could logically be included among the vainglorious prevaricators that the IHR had been describing.)
Now in a libel case, a public figure -- as Mel clearly was -- has a greater burden in proving that he's been libeled. Under the law, as required by the Supreme Court, a so-called "public figure" is required to show "actual malice" and "reckless disregard for the truth."
Thus, Mel was claiming to be a private citizen -- not a "public figure" under the law. He said, in his lawsuit, that he had been defamed and had suffered emotional distress as a consequence. And he wanted $11 million in damages.
The IHR didn't relish the thought of giving Mel $11 million that it certainly didn't have. That's why the IHR had brought in a celebrity of its own to tangle with Mel in the
courtroom. The IHR's chief attorney was indeed a celebrated personage, even better known than Mel. The attorney's name was Mark Lane.
Although both men were celebrities in every sense of the word, the contrast between the two couldn't be greater.
Lane was tall and broad shouldered, athletically-built, his glowing California tan framed by a flowing mane of salt-and-pepper hair accented with a close-cropped beard and mustache.
Dressed to the nines in a flawlessly-tailored European-style gray double-breasted suit, Lane cut quite a figure. He dominated the tableau.
Not so with Mermelstein -- actually and ironically the central figure of this drama. Both ill-at-ease and yet still pompous, self-righteous and ready for combat, Mermelstein
was a remarkably unremarkable fellow for one who had created so much controversy.
Although he had been under oath before in this case -- several times before, in fact, during depositions -- this was the first time in a public arena, the first time before a judge. And he had sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If he tried to tell a lie -- and Lane caught him -- Mermelstein might well face perjury charges and prison time.
So it was that the questioning began. Mel's purpose was
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to maintain that he was not a public figure. Just a shy and retiring fellow who had -- against his wishes, of course -- been dragged into the public arena kicking and screaming. But, he insisted, he was not, not, not a public figure. Absolutely not.
Lane began the questioning. Lane's quiet tone little indicated the sharp questioning that lay ahead. After Lane guided Mermelstein through a discussion of his self-published autobiography, By Bread Alone, he asked him if he had identified himself on the book's title page as an "Author and Lecturer." "But not for the money," interjected Mermelstein. "I am a lecturer and I authored this book, yes, but not as an occupation." 14
He told Lane that there was a "tremendous amount of interest in that barbaric event" (i.e. the Holocaust) and that people "were looking for some sort of answers to what had happened during that period." That, said Mermelstein, was why he wrote the book.
Under Lane's prodding, Mermelstein admitted that in the "acknowledgments" to his book that he expressed his gratitude to many students, teachers, professors and others at numerous high schools, colleges and universities who had urged him to publish his life story after hearing his lectures.
How had Mermelstein come into contact with these learning centers, asked Lane. "They contacted me," answered Mermelstein. And when did Mermelstein first begin his tour on the lecture circuit, asked Lane. It was in 1967, said Mermelstein -- some twenty four years before -- a long time, indeed, on the public hustings.
And at how many high schools, colleges and universities had Mermelstein lectured? "I think you can count them on your fingers ... No more than ten."
Mermelstein went on to declare that in some instances he had to turn down invitations, for one reason or another. Lane pressed him. "How many calls would you get in a year, Mr. Mermelstein?"
"It is again you can count them on your fingers," responded Mermelstein. But Lane was persistent, as only Mark Lane could be, his in-depth,. probing, detail-oriented cross-examinations having become legend among those who had watched him in the courtrooms over the years.
A Shy and Retiring Fellow? - 9
Mermelstein's attorney, Lawrence Heller, himself hailed as a hard-driving Los Angeles trial lawyer, began to bristle. "He has said you could count on one hand those high schools, colleges, universities," interrupted Heller.
At that point, Judge Lachs broke in. "He didn't say 'one hand.' He said on fingers."
Heller acknowledged his error. "Fingers," he agreed.
But Lane wasn't satisfied. He brought forth an exhibit that Mermelstein himself had submitted in court papers. Addressing Mermelstein he pointed out that the witness had listed "35 different appearances for a year and a half, beginning in January 1980." (This, of course, being a far cry from the number of appearances he could list on his "fingers.")
"I don't remember that," said Mermelstein but, slowly but surely, under questioning by Lane, Mermelstein finally -- but only grudgingly -- conceded that he had been a speaker at a minimum of 35 different locations during a period of a year and a half.
Mermelstein also admitted that he had talked to newspaper reporters. "They called me and asked me for information," he announced to the court.
This prompted Lane to ask if Mermelstein, in his memoirs, had thanked "the many newspaper reporters and radio and television announcers who have interviewed me."
When Lane asked Mermelstein -- who was still insisting that he was in a sense, a shy and retiring kind of guy -- if he had ever been appointed by then-Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) to any committee, the witness declared. "No, I was not." But, however, Mermelstein volunteered, "I think he requested that I be appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Commission."
What's more, according to private figure Mermelstein, "As a matter of fact, I was honored by a number of city councils . . ." and, he noted, also honored by the California state assembly.
How was it, asked Lane, that a Los Angeles City Councilman had learned about Mermelstein and decided that he deserved to be honored by the city? According to Mermelstein: "He said he was somewhere in the Far East . . ." when he read about Mermelstein in a newspaper there.
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"Japan or someplace?" asked an intrigued Lane, who saw, clearly, that Mermelstein was walking right into the trap. "Maybe Hong Kong," said Mermelstein, almost conversationally.
"So," said Lane, with a hint of a smile, "you are internationally known, are you?"
There was a stirring between the two attorneys representing Mermelstein, but they had no grounds to interrupt. Their client had gone too far and there was nothing --
absolutely nothing -- they could do. Maybe a stern glance. That's all.
Mermelstein may not have fully understood the law of libel, but he was not stupid. He responded -- knowing he'd been caught. His response was classic prevarication. Was he, as Lane asked, internationally known?
"No," said Mermelstein, "because the newspapers reported that. I did not report that ... I had nothing to do with that." The incident involving himself that had reached the
media's attention was not, declared Mermelstein, "a publicity gimmick of some sort.".
In short, Mermelstein insisted, he was not a public figure even though his activities (in this case a previous legal bout with the IHR) had reached the media around the world, bringing high honors at home. Not a public figure? Not Mel.
And then, as the questioning continued -- as Lane burrowed further into the depths of Mermelstein's public relations triumphs, here and abroad -- Mermelstein revealed
that his own lecturing was international in scope. In Poland, he revealed, "there was a conference on the Holocaust and I was invited by the Polish authorities to come there."
"How many Americans were there?" asked Lane. Proudly, almost defiantly, but matter of factly, said Mermelstein, "I was the only one."
The only American -- out of some 230 million Americans -- invited to Poland to a conference on the Holocaust was Mel Mermelstein. Not a public figure, of course. Hardly known. A shy and retiring kind of fellow. Not a celebrity.
Lane's questioning of Mermelstein continued. The point had been made clear, but Mermelstein and his attorneys were not yet ready to admit it.
A Shy and Retiring Fellow? - 11
Soon enough -- but perhaps not soon enough for Mermelstein -- the judge dismissed the court for a brief lunch break. This proved, in the end, quite pivotal.
During the lunch break, an IHR staffer had been busy doing some research. As the staffer watched Mermelstein squirming on the stand earlier that morning, he recalled that
Mermelstein had once estimated, during a deposition, that he had given an average of 20 lectures a year since 1967.
The statement was unearthed in a deposition that Mermelstein had given in 1985 -- some six years previously. Mark Lane realized that he now had the final hard fact he needed to trip up Mermelstein on his very own words.
Once court resumed, Mermelstein returned to the stand. There is no doubt Mermelstein was surprised when Lane began to re-examine something that had been discussed earlier
-- the number of lectures given by Mermelstein over the years. Lane reminded Mermelstein of his previous testimony and walked him through the details of his tour on the lecture circuit.
Finally, in summation, Lane asked, "Did you give approximately 20 lectures a year on the subject 'The Holocaust' from 1967 to 1985?"
Mermelstein, by now very much worn down by the questioning, answered. "I would probably go along with that because I can't pin it down exactly whether it was 15, 12, 19, 20, 22. I don't know. . ."
That is well over 300 lectures, isn't it. Mr. Mermelstein?" prompted Lane.
After a moment, Mermelstein agreed. "Well, according to your figure, I would go along with that."
It was then that Mark Lane went in for the kill ...
"Why did you tell us this morning that you could count on your fingers the number of lectures you have given?" he asked.
"I meant hands and fingers," said Mermelstein, his voice stumbling. "I mean hands and feet, is probably what I meant, not hands and fingers."
One of Mermelstein's attorneys, junior counsel Peter Bersin, buried his head in his arms on the desk before him. Judge Lachs himself rolled his eyes heavenward.
However, Lane pressed forward. He was determined to
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continue. It was some moments later that Bersin interrupted Mermelstein, who was responding to one of Lane's continuing inquiries.
"Your honor, excuse me," said Bersin. "I think at this time the plaintiff would accept the offer of proof being made on this issue of 'public figure.'"
"By that, in other words," asked Judge Lachs, "you will put to rest the issue of whether or not Mr. Mermelstein is a public figure?"
"Yes," sighed Bersin.
So there. Mel Mermelstein was a public figure. A celebrity. Mel's libel case had been effectively eviscerated. As a public figure he would be hard pressed to claim he had been libeled.
In short, one might say, Mark Lane had proven that -- by virtue of Mermelstein's claim to be a private citizen, not a public figure -- Mel Mermelstein was, actually, in at least one sense, after all, a demonstrable fraud.
So it was that the first major courtroom battle in Mel Mermelstein's second legal offensive against the Institute for Historical Review within a decade had come to an end. But this was just one chapter in a long and drawn out story.
There had been much drama that preceded this battle -- and much more that lay ahead. The whole series of events that led to this courtroom conflict had begun nearly eleven years
previously -- actually even longer before. History was being made, but not in the way that Mel Mermelstein and his cheerleaders initially thought it would be.
In 1980 Long Beach, California family man, pallet manufacturer, Holocaust survivor and author and lecturer Mel Mermelstein launched what evolved into a twelve year campaign to destroy the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) specifically, and the historical revisionist movement in general. In a series of lawsuits Mermelstein sought to bring the IHR to its knees and to wipe the slate clean of any semblance of organized leadership and scholarly historical research in the field of holocaust revisionism.
Mermelstein's campaign against the IHR and the historical revisionists for the first time brought to widespread public attention the very fact that there was indeed a revisionist movement. Until that time, largely, the research and writing by the revisionist historians was known to relatively limited circles, particularly their highly controversial work examining what did and didn't happen during the period known as the Holocaust.
Although revisionism is controversial by its very nature, it is the revisionist research into the Holocaust that has provoked so much public outrage. So then, who are the historical revisionists? What is historical revisionism?
Do the historical revisionists really say that the Holocaust never happened, that there were no German-run concentration camps for Jews during World War II, that there were no gas
chambers, that it was all a big lie -- the hoax of the 20th century? Where are these people coming from? What motivates them? Are they admirers of Hitler, people trying to revive the Third Reich? Are they legitimate historians or are they frauds with a poisonous secret agenda?
Just exactly what is the Institute for Historical Review -- and why did Mel Mermelstein decide that destruction of the IHR was his number one priority -- a decade-long endeavor
that he undertook with intensity and with obvious relish, the financial rewards and the fame and the international glory he reaped notwithstanding?
To understand how the IHR emerged as the focal point of
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Mermelstein's rage against the revisionist movement, it is important to understand the initial thrusts of revisionism in America -- in particular, revisionist writings and research regarding the Holocaust.
The IHR itself was established in 1978. Its first headquarters were located in Torrance, California, just south of Los Angeles.
The founder of the institute was Willis A. Carto, a veteran writer and political organizer who was best known as the founder of Liberty Lobby, a populist and nationalist lobby institution based on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
The IHR, however, was totally independent of Liberty Lobby. The lobby focused on precisely what its name implied: lobbying Congress on issues -- foreign and domestic -- that
affected America's consumers, taxpayers and voters. The IHR, on the other hand, was interested in precisely what its name implied: the review of history.
Carto had long-standing personal interest in historical trends and over a period of years recognized that there was a growing interest in historical revisionism. What's more, he felt
that the court historians of the Establishment had re-written -- and were re-writing historical truth for their own purposes. Consequently, Carto perceived that the time was ripe for organizing a forum that could serve as a contact point and publishing outlet for revisionists and their growing movement worldwide.
Thus it was that Carto and his wife, Elisabeth, and a number of associates, including LaVonne and Lewis Furr and an attorney, Peter Kuetzing, set up the body now known as the
Institute for Historical Review. It was within a few short years that the IHR emerged as the world's leading organization carrying on the tradition of historical revisionism, evolving as a "spark plug" for revisionist research around the world.
What, though, is revisionism? What place does it have in historical research? What is the basis on which the IHR conducts its own study of history? How did the revisionist
movement evolve, particularly in America, so that the birth of the IHR was possible?
Let us address these questions so that the full circumstances of how and why the IHR became the number one target
What is Revisionism? - 15
of Holocaust celebrity Mel Mermelstein can be made clear. This is vital to understanding why, indeed, Mel Mermelstein is the "best witness" to the Holocaust and why, in the end, he played a major role in the triumph of historical revisionism.
The IHR has been guided by the words of the late revisionist historian, Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes, one of the towering figures among historians -- revisionist and non-revisionist alike. Barnes said that Revisionism meant ". . . nothing more or less than the effort to correct the historical record in the light of a more complete collection of historical facts, a more calm political atmosphere, and a more objective attitude."15
In a short essay the institute succinctly summarized the thrust of modern-day revisionism -- what it was, and from where it came:
"The term originated with a group of scholars (French, British, American, German and others) whose researches undermined the presumption of unique German responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Although the term Revisionist originally was used to apply only to the question of guilt for World War I, it has subsequently come to include all historical findings at odds with the Establishment version. Revisionism is freedom of speech in history.
"Those early Revisionists and those who followed the tradition recognized a fact of life pertaining to the writing of history: in the case of wars, historians of the victorious nations tend to write historical accounts that ignore relevant facts not favorable to the victor while, at the same time, misrepresenting or inventing other facts in order to cast the loser in an unfavorable light. Most of these historians had played an active role in World War I, many in propaganda and intelligence; after the Second World War, it was not uncommon for them to continue to have links with intelligence agencies.
"When history is written by partisan historians from a victor nation, the winning side emerges simplistically as the 'good guys.' The losers, of course, are the 'bad guys.' It is the Revisionists' aim to understand wars, not to continue to fight them in endless polemical battles. Revisionists search for the underlying causes of wars, hold the self-serving claims of all parties to those struggles to critical review, and investigate the
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role of often shadowy third parties that sought to profit from wars waged ostensibly on behalf of nation states.
"The Revisionists have challenged, in particular, some of the most sacrosanct dogmas of World War II propaganda, from the unmitigated evil and aggressiveness of Germany, Japan and their allies, to the unquestioning acceptance of the so-called Holocaust in all its improbable details.
"The whole point of Historical Revisionism is to bring the historical record into accord with the facts. Its purpose is to understand the origins and consequences of wars in order to prevent future wars.
"Historical Revisionism is non-ideological and non-political. Revisionists come from across the political spectrum. Historical Revisionism is neither anti-Jewish nor pro-German. Revisionists do not seek to rehabilitate this or that regime. They seek to rehabilitate the truth." 16
Publishing a quarterly academic journal, the Journal of Historical Review, and, until 1993 also a monthly newsletter, the IHR also coordinated first publication of a wide variety of revisionist historical works, along with the republication of prior, out-of-print works by well-known (and newly-emerging) revisionist historians.
The IHR sponsored regular international conferences attended by historians and other interested parties literally from around the world -- Latin America, Western Europe, and Japan -- people representing all races, creeds, colors and political thought. Through 1993 there had been eleven conferences.
The lecturers, over the years, included some of the world's most widely read and respected historians -- among them Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John Toland (author of, among other works, The Rising Sun) and David Irving, the outspoken British author who is generally ranked to be the most widely-read popular historian writing in the English language.
Irving's best-seller, Hitler's War, created international controversy when Irving suggested -- in writing -- that there was no documentary evidence linking Hitler to the systematic slaughter of some six million Jews by the Germans during World War II. It was later that Irving himself came to doubt --
What is Revisionism? - 17
and publicly said so -- the actual existence even of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. As a direct consequence Irving himself published (and wrote a introductory foreword for) a forensic study, known as The Leuchter Report, that questioned the authenticity of the Auschwitz gas chambers story.
One of America's greatest historians, the aforementioned Harry Elmer Barnes, often described as the founding father of the revisionist school of historical research, was a "quiet revisionist," so to speak, at least as far as the matter of the Holocaust is concerned.
Although he published some 40 different books, many of which were standard college texts in their time, Barnes became persona non grata in the academic Establishment when he began emerging as a critic of America's globalist, internationialist, profiteering foreign policy between the two world wars. Despite the very public controversy over his foreign policy views, Barnes' opinions about the Holocaust remained hidden in his private papers (now lodged in the University of Wyoming Library). Within those papers, which include Barnes' correspondence with some of the most distinguished historians of the century, there are repeated sneering references by Barnes to what he called "the Genocide Legend," "6MM" (Six Million Myth), etc.
(One of Barnes' close colleagues, Dr. Frank H. Hankins, a rather well-known historian based at prestigious Smith College, assembled a demographic study in the mid-1950's in which he took issue with the "six million" legend, but he didn't affix his name to it.)
Although there was much debate about the question of whether or not six million Jews did indeed die at the hands of Nazi Germany, even many of those who disputed the numbers did not dispute that long-propagated story that poison gas was utilized in the commission of the crime in "gas ovens" at the concentration camp known as Auschwitz.
In short, while some were willing to dispute the numbers of those who died -- or didn't die -- there was virtually no debate over the question of how those who died did die. The theory that Nazi Germany had carried out a deliberate program of extermination was accepted as absolute, unarguable fact, not to be denied, freedom of speech to the contrary notwithstanding.
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One French writer, however, upset the apple cart in the late 1940's when he began publishing a series of books challenging the stories about the Holocaust that were becoming a
staple of the history textbooks, popular films and fiction, and a veritable article of faith among millions of educated people. This controversial Frenchman came to the conclusion that the story of the gas chambers and exterminations was, in his words, "a historic lie: the most tragic and the most macabre imposture of all time." 17
Strong words indeed, particularly since this French writer, Paul Rassinier, a socialist academic, had himself been arrested by the Nazi Gestapo in 1943 and interned at the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dora. Having been a prisoner in the "death camps," Rassinier was surprised, following the war, to hear so many widely-publicized and widely conflicting stories that were often wildly inconsistent with what he had experienced in the camps. As a consequence he put his thoughts -- and the results of his research into the matter -- on paper.
A valiant and leading member of the French (anti-Nazi) Resistance, Rassinier survived the camps -- he was not Jewish, but he was indeed a "survivor" -- and went on to serve in the French parliament. He was also decorated for his war-time heroics against the Nazi invaders.
Yet, his crusade for truth brought down the wrath of those who were determined to make the legend of the Six Million an indisputable historical fact. Ironically, it was not a German apologist, an "old Nazi of the Hitlerite regime," or even a "neo-Nazi" who first brought the controversy over the details of the Holocaust to widespread attention. Instead, it was a French pacifist and socialist who had fought the Nazis and spent time interned in the concentration camps for his troubles.
Despite all of the quiet, behind-the-scenes discussion (in Europe and in America) of what Barnes called "the Genocide Legend," it was not until about 1966 that the first book-length study on the issue of what really happened during the Holocaust was written in English. It was by Dr. David L. Hoggan, a Harvard man, who quietly circulated a few copies, in mimeographed form, to other scholars. It was anonymous. The Noontide Press published it under the title, The Myth of the Six Million, in 1969.
Doubting "History" - 21
One English author, Colin Wilson, surprisingly spoke favorably of this little work, describing it as "devoid of hysteria or emotional anti-Semitism. It quotes figures and lists sources, and the tone is generally rather pedantic. But [the author] points out that there are no eyewitness accounts of extermination in Auschwitz, one of the main 'death camps,' and many other similar strange anomalies."18
In 1973 retired English professor Dr. Austin J. App, a German-American, published a volume entitled, The Six Million Swindle, charging that the government of Israel had made billions of marks in profit off the West German government in "reparations" payments based on what App claimed was a wildly inflated figure of "six million" Jews exterminated by Nazi Germany.
It was in 1976 that Holocaust revisionism exploded on the scene in a genuinely international way. Published in England was a 300-page study entitled The Hoax of The Twentieth Century -- an all-out, thoroughly-researched, carefully-written assault on "the Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry."
The book rocked the literate world. It received international publicity almost overnight. The author was no "neo-Nazi crank" or "professional anti-Semite" -- instead, he was a thoroughly reputable, thoroughly respectable American university professor: Dr. Arthur R. Butz.
New York City born and raised, Butz received a bachelor of science and a master of science degree in the field of electrical engineering from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1965 he received a doctorate in control sciences from the University of Minnesota. In 1966 he joined the faculty of the highly-regarded Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he today (1994) is an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.
Butz's academic credentials, particularly in light of his published work, confounded many otherwise unbiased people who could not believe that an obviously intelligent, educated and rational man could have researched and written and then publicly affixed his name to a book presenting a thesis so sensational -- a theory that contradicted everything that they had been taught as unquestionable facts of history.
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Having spent several years scrutinizing the broad-ranging subject in detail, Butz clinically and rationally dissected the Holocaust legend. His work was a devastating critique of the gas chamber legend and a landmark historical refutation of well-known "facts" -- myths, that is -- that had become part of the public consciousness.
An enraged Jewish community demanded Butz's head on a platter, but he was a tenured professor -- and, what's more, like it or not, there was (and is) still freedom of expression in America, efforts to censor and ban it notwithstanding.
The following year The Noontide Press published the first American edition of Butz's controversial and ground-breaking holocaust revisionist study. The Noontide Press was the
publishing arm of the parent body that legally established the loose association of academics, researchers and others that ultimately emerged in 1978 as the Institute for Historical Review.
So it was that holocaust revisionism (and historical revisionism in general) had come full circle. Revisionism now not only had an audience which was growing in number, but it
had more and more full-fledged historians and other academics who were willing to put their reputations on the public chopping block.
The revisionists were ready and willing to face the hysteria and the defamation that hitherto had been reserved only for the most heinous of criminals (if even that,
considering the media's friendly and long-standing fascination and promotion of roguery).
Revisionists, now out in the open, had the mighty task of presenting scholarly, reasoned, carefully documented and crafted arguments that could withstand the media assault and dissection by their critics.
The subject of Holocaust revisionism was no longer the stuff of photocopied flyers furtively shoved inside mail slots by dead of night and placed behind windshield wipers in
supermarket parking lots on Saturday mornings. It was a serious scholarly venture -- and one, in the end, that could prove dangerous, which indeed many of those affiliated with the IHR were to learn in years to come.
The Holocaust revisionists were forced, by circumstance,
Doubting "History" - 23
to begin to refine their arguments, to polish them, to determine just exactly where they stood on the big issues, particularly in reference to the facts and details about what did -- and didn't -- happen in the concentration camps.
Unfortunately some people, not understanding the issues, actually believed the media's claims that the revisionists said that "there was no Holocaust." For that reason the IHR took the stand that it was vital for the historical revisionists to, frankly, get their act together. This was a major task, in many ways, particularly because the revisionist movement was spreading worldwide.
In many countries revisionists who were, in some cases, not yet even affiliated with the IHR, were engaged in their own research: France, Germany, Sweden, England and elsewhere. It
truly was global in scope. However, it was the IHR that gave historical revisionism the leadership that the movement needed to keep it energized and dynamic and reaching out to more and more people in the world at large.
By the time that historical revisionism became a part of the historical debate (perhaps largely, ironically, because of publicity arising from the Mermelstein Affair, which we will
examine in these pages), Establishment historians were becoming obsessed with combating revisionism.
In their effort to combat revisionism, in the end, they were forced to address its contentions -- something they had, in the past, refused to do. Now to fight the revisionists they had
to tell the public just what it was the revisionists were thinking. In early 1993, historian Paul Johnson, no friend of revisionism, described revisionism in a critical -- and not necessarily accurate -- review as follows:
"It takes many forms. Some deniers say that the Holocaust was a complete fabrication from start to finish. Others, such as President Tudjman of Croatia, claim that the
numbers of Jews killed has been hugely and deliberately exaggerated: Tudjman insists that only 900,000 Jews died." [Tudjman has since recanted under pressure, however.]
"Another approach is to produce 'scientific evidence' that Jews who died in the death camps could not have been killed in the way historians and war-crimes tribunals have asserted.
In particular, deniers claim that Zyklon-B gas was totally
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inappropriate as a homicidal agent. A Boston engineer called Fred A. Leuchter, who specialized in construction [of] execution apparatuses, was sent out to Auschwitz and Madjdanek to collect 'forensic samples' and on his return produced a report that concluded there had never been homicidal gassings at these sites.
"Yet another common tactic is to attack the authenticity of The Diary of Anne Frank, which has sold over 20 million copies in scores of countries as well as being made into a prize-winning play and movie. For countless people, it personifies the tragedy and horror of the Holocaust. But deniers claim that the Diary is a post-war invention, written by a professional New York playwright in collaboration with Anne Frank's father."19
Contrary to Johnson's often-inaccurate assessment of what historical revisionism is all about, here, according to a survey of historical revisionism by the IHR, are the things the revisionists don't deny and have never denied:
The existence of a vast network of concentration camps throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.
The existence of a forced-labor program for inmates of these camps.
The fact that the Nazi regime was anti-Jewish and sought to physically remove the Jews first from Germany and then from all of Europe under its control.
The fact that in order to accomplish this segregation, a vast program called the "Endlösung" or ("Final Solution") was developed and implemented, which involved, first, the segregation of Jews in ghettoes, and then their mass transport (the "combing through of Europe from West to East") to concentration camps and other labor centers in the Eastern occupied territories.
The fact that Jewish, and other, practitioners of illegal behind-the-lines partisan warfare were executed by German Einsatzgruppen (Action Group) units in rear security operations which were basically of a "preventative guerrilla-warfare" character. And the fact that in these round-up operations some innocent people were indeed killed. (In a bitter and desperate war situation it was difficult to separate the innocent from the guilty, especially in partisan warfare where combatants hid behind civilian clothes.)
Doubting "History" - 25
The fact that many Jews perished among the more than 40 million Europeans who perished during the Second World War, and that their casualties from all causes -- including natural attrition, disease, malnutrition, bombings, military actions, pogroms conducted by indigenous Eastern European populations, Einsatzgruppen actions, nameless ad hoc atrocities, and general wartime havoc -- numbered unquestionably in the hundreds of thousands.
The fact that many Jews in concentration camps were separated from and lost contact with their relatives or friends and that many of these people indeed perished during this time.
The existence of crematorium ovens in the larger concentration camps, for the purpose of efficiently and sanitarily disposing of the corpses of inmates who died from the periodic raging epidemics of typhus.
The [existence of gas chambers] in the camps using the disinfectant cyanic gas Zyklon-B to disinfect clothing, bedding, etc.
The fact that British and American troops at the liberation of the camps in Germany (Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc) encountered horrible scenes of strewn and piled corpses, as well as many inmates who were in terrible physical condition, barely alive.
The fact that some atrocities did occur, above and beyond the scope of legitimate martial or judicial punishment, on an ad-hoc basis and perpetrated by the types of persons that are unleashed by all wars, and found on all sides in a war.
None of this is denied. What is denied is that there was a deliberate Germany policy of systematic extermination of Jews, such policy implemented mainly by mass murder in gas chambers in extermination camps, with the total numbers of dead in the area of six million or even more. The "Holocaust," if defined in these terms, is a myth. It never happened.
It is important to understand, further, that it is no mere "numbers game" the revisionists are playing. They are not just saying: "Well, it wasn't as many as six million." They are saying that there was no German "extermination program." 20 Regardless of what "The Holocaust" actually was, it is the
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common perception or image of that word which is important, exactly as perception, not reality is the stock in trade of all salesmen, advertisers and promoters.
While one Holocaust survivor, Mel Mermelstein -- whom we have already met -- was to describe himself as the "best witness" to the events we mean when we speak of the
Holocaust, then the alleged events themselves come into question. So the question of "What is 'The Holocaust'?" must be explored. This is precisely what the IHR has done.
What, then, is the Holocaust? The answer, of course, depends on the definition. To the average American, the phrase "The Holocaust" has a very clear meaning: the cold-blooded killing of six million Jews in "gas ovens."
This definition, in light of all scholarship today (particularly that by the IHR and its associates), is ludicrous. Most Jewish historians today will admit that the six million
figure is impossible to sustain and forensic evidence, hundreds of articles printed in the IHR's Journal of Historical Review as well as dozens of papers presented to the IHR's international revisionist conferences confirm this.
However, there may have been a "Holocaust" in the sense that many Jews were killed in cold blood on their Eastern front by the German Einsatzgruppen, although there is no evidence this happened on Germany's Western front. To explore this further it is important to remember the Geneva Conventions, the terms of which attempted to define what was permissible and what was impermissible during war.
The Geneva Conventions were ratified by most of the great powers by 1929. The one major power which refused to sign was the Soviet Union due to the fact that at that time its
leader, Josef Stalin, a beloved favorite of the Anglo-American press, such as the New York Times, was engaged in the task of eliminating millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Balts and others whom he found ill-fitting as the "New Communist Man" which enamored Western and Jewish intellectuals.
The Geneva Conventions, among other things, prescribed rules for the treatment of military prisoners. And, contrary to popular misconception, the record shows that much-reviled National Socialist Germany observed these rules incomparably better than the U.S. or Great Britain.
Doubting "History" - 27
On Germany's Eastern Front it was different. Not being a signatory to the convention, Stalin ignored it and the war sank to the lowest level of barbarism. As a matter of Soviet policy,
German prisoners were either shot or marched off to work in Siberian mines. Out of approximately 3,000,000 Germans taken prisoner, only some 300,000 returned to Germany after the war.
The Germans had no option but to conduct war with equal savagery. As a matter of policy the German troops on the Eastern Front would simply shoot all Communist political commissars they captured. These commissars -- many of them, in fact, Jewish -- were assigned to Red Army combat units to see that abject obedience to Stalin's Communist Party was observed.
Since the Germans, rightly or wrongly, believed that the Jews were the backbone of Soviet Communism, they were often shot on sight while Russians and others were spared.
In fact, in the latter days of the war the Germans formed many divisions out of non-Jewish Soviet soldiers the German forces captured. Many of these captives had actually deserted the Red Army. And there are stories of German units, and other units allied with the Germans, such as the Hungarians, shooting the entire Jewish population of some villages.
(The idea that the Jews, as a people, were a driving force behind international communism was, however, not unique to the Germans or their Eastern European collaborators.
(None other than Winston Churchill himself -- later British prime minister -- wrote an article published in the February 8, 1920 edition of the Illustrated Sunday Herald of
London in which he declared that the issue of what he called "Zionism vs. Bolshevism" constituted nothing less than "a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.")
In short, war was indeed -- as the old adage goes -- Hell. So if there was a "Holocaust," this is what the Holocaust really was -- a far cry from the "cold-blooded killing of six million Jews in "gas ovens."
Having reached these determinations, and having defined what was -- and what wasn't -- "The Holocaust," the IHR and its associates struggled for an effective method to make their revisionist research known to the general public which had
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been conditioned to accept the standard definition of "The Holocaust." It was, in fact, the IHR's first major public relations effort -- critics called it a "gimmick" -- that ultimately brought Holocaust revisionism to perhaps more people than even the IHR ever thought possible.
It was during the IHR's first international revisionist conference, conducted in 1979, that the IHR first offered its controversial $50,000 reward offer for proof that Jews had been gassed at Auschwitz.
Although the offer was completely serious and legitimate, its primary purpose was to attract public attention to the revisionist movement. However, the IHR did intend to accept the evidence presented by any who came forward to claim the reward and to place their evidence before an adjudicating panel which would determine if the evidence was valid.
In the end this offer certainly had an impact, although of an unexpected nature. It was this offer that, ultimately, through a tangled series of circumstances, brought Mel Mermelstein into combat with the IHR.
This reward offer, according to David Lehrer of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai Brith, which devoted much of its energy to attacking the burgeoning revisionist movement, was, "the master stroke of the [IHR's 1979 revisionist] convention." 21
It would also prove to be a critical event in the history of the IHR and would ultimately spark its legal entanglement with Mel Mermelstein. It would also prove to be the catalyst for what resulted in a major triumph for historical revisionism. The details of the reward offer were as follows: "In order for a claim to reach the stage of presentation before the adjudicating panel, certain conditions had to be met: the claimant should describe fully his evidence, providing specific names, dates, and locations of incidents, and the names of any other witnesses to such. If a former inmate of a concentration camp, he should state precisely in what camps he was held and for what period(s) of time, and whether he himself was an eye-witness to a gassing.
"He should provide supporting documentary evidence such as diaries, photographs, film, official or unofficial documents, and also some forensic evidence.
"This was an important condition: if murder is to be
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proved, there must be the body or parts thereof of a victim or victims, called a corpus delicti. The Second World War on both fighting and home fronts saw no lack of victims and bodies, and concentration camp inmates -- devastated particularly by typhus epidemics because of the conditions inherent in the camps -- were no exception."22
However, the IHR was looking specifically for forensic evidence of victims of gassing in a gas chamber. As the IHR noted, "if some six million (or eleven million, or even forty million, as variations on the story have it) were murdered that way, there must be extant at least one such body, or at the very least genuine autopsy records of an examination of one such body."23
Holocaust museums, around the globe, the IHR pointed out, displayed various body parts, bones and ashes of purported "gas chamber victims." What's more, mass graves at
or near concentration camp sites in Europe could be exhumed for forensic examination of human remains. In short, if there were homicidal gassings, forensic evidence could prove it. That's what the IHR was asking for: forensic evidence -- scientific proof that could stand up in an American court of law.
The IHR had made it clear that the standard for considering all evidence of the claimants would have been the rules set forth in the Federal Rules of Evidence of the United States as interpreted by the Federal courts in criminal prosecutions.
If the IHR's adjudicating panel determined that a claimant or claimants had met the standards, it would certify the claim or claims having proved the point in question and the IHR would have been legally bound to make good on its $50,000 reward offer. 24
By July 31, 1980, there had been no claimants for the offer of proof that there had been lethal gassings at Auschwitz and so, the offer was closed.
However, the IHR did have a new offer: $25,000 for anyone who could prove that Anne Frank's famous Holocaust-era diary was genuine. There was a second prize of $25,000 to anyone who could prove that the Nazi concentration camp terror-masters had turned Jewish prisoners into bars of soap.
It was after the initial offer of $50,000 (for proof of Jews being gassed at Auschwitz) had expired) that world-famous professional "Nazi Hunter" (and self-proclaimed Holocaust
The Reward Offer - 31
survivor) Simon Wiesenthal did enter a claim for the still-open $25,000 offer to anyone who could prove the authenticity of the Diary of Anne Frank. He also indicated that he had proof of Nazi gassings at Auschwitz (although, of course, the reward time had expired). Wiesenthal did not, however, choose to debate the hackneyed "Jews-turned-into-soap" story.
The Nazi hunter was fully aware of the precise terms and conditions under which his claim was going to be considered. However, at the last minute, but prior to his actual filing of a claim, he began to haggle with the IHR over the rules of the offer.
Wiesenthal wanted the controversial "diary" to be "authenticated" by an appointee of the Dutch Ministry of Justice (Anne Frank had spent her final days in Holland prior
to being deported to a German relocation camp). What's more, Wiesenthal wanted the final adjudication of the diary's authenticity -- and thus, Wiesenthal's claim for the reward -- to be handled by a judge from California's state supreme court.
This was not just bending the rules of the initial claim offer. It was a revision of the rules. As a consequence, the IHR advised Wiesenthal that his counter-offer was being rejected. 25
In the meantime, the IHR received yet another claim for the $50,000 reward for forensic and documentary proof that Jews had indeed been fatally gassed at Auschwitz. The reward claimant was an Orange County, California businessman named Mel Mermelstein. He had been told by an employee of the IHR -- who did so without authorization -- that the $50,000 reward would be re-opened just for him. However, as we shall see, the circumstances were a bit more complex than that.
The IHR noted Mermelstein's emergence as a reward claimant in its February, 1981 newsletter, advising its readers that the IHR was first going to deal with Wiesenthal's Anne Frank Diary claim at its 1981 convention and then, when that matter was resolved, with both Wiesenthal's and Mermelstein's "gas chamber" claims. 26
On March 4, 1981 Wiesenthal wrote a letter to the IHR announcing that "With this letter I wish to wind up the fruitless correspondence with the Institute for Historical Review.
However, it was important for me to get to know the policy of your Institute." 27
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There may have been another consideration in Wiesenthal's mind, however: On October 9, 1980 the New York Post (certainly no voice of historical revisionism)
published an article headlined "Anne Frank may not have inked that famous diary."28
The article reported a disclosure made by the German news weekly Der Spiegel which stated that "A report by the German Federal Criminal Investigation Bureau indicates that portions of the diary had been altered or added after 1951, casting doubt over the authenticity of the entire work."29 Whatever the case, the famed Nazi hunter (who had devoted his career to unmasking Nazis in hiding) was unable to meet even the simplest prerequisites of the IHR's reward offer. And the facts about the Anne Frank affair were making things a bit too uncomfortable for Anne Frank enthusiasts. However, in the meantime, Mel Mermelstein had suddenly emerged as a very big figure in the world of the Institute for Historical Review. In fact, Mermelstein was laying the groundwork for a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the IHR. This lawsuit and its aftermath would, in the end, spell the triumph of historical revisionism, although, in its earliest stages, that never would have seemed possible.
Let us now begin to examine the strange series of events that led Mel Mermelstein into legal combat with the Institute for Historical Review and the even more bizarre events that would follow.
Who was this simple pallet maker who, in his own way (unwittingly and certainly without intent) gave new impetus -- perhaps even helped give birth -- to a new era in historical revisionist research?
Mermelstein's life story -- as he has told it in various places and in various contexts -- has been rife with contradictions, but several basic facts just a few -- are fairly well established. Otherwise, the contradictions remain.
A resident of Long Beach, California, Mermelstein was -- and is today (1993) -- the owner of Ideal Pallet Manufacturing based in nearby Huntington Beach. He was also founder of the Auschwitz Study Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation which he said was "dedicated to the preservation of the memory of the millions who died in the Holocaust."
The author of his own memoirs, entitled By Bread Alone, Mermelstein, as we have seen, had gained international fame as a celebrity survivor of the Holocaust. He was also, in his own fashion, a collector of Holocaust memorabilia which he displayed in his own traveling museum, a veritable circus sideshow indeed.
He was born September 25, 1926 in the Carpathian region of Czechoslovakia to Bernat and Fany Mermelstein, both of whom were of what Mermelstein described as "Jewish/Hebrew ethnic origin." He had two sisters and a brother. Mermelstein's father was a wine maker and his mother a seamstress.
In 1944, Mermelstein said, he and his entire family were deported to the Auschwitz labor camp in Poland. Mermelstein himself was later transferred to the camp at Buchenwald. He was among those who were liberated by Allied forces on April 11, 1945.
Upon his release, Mermelstein said, he learned that his father and brother had died as prisoners of the Germans; likewise with his mother and sisters.
The actual circumstances of their deaths -- how they did die, and if indeed they did die at that time -- have not yet been determined.
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As IHR researchers ultimately determined, Mermelstein himself told often wildly conflicting stories about these matters and many others. (These contradictions -- indeed -- could fill an entire book.)
Mermelstein apparently decided to strike out for America and arrived in the states on August 31, 1946. He attended school to learn English, and between 1947 to 1950 attended City College of New York.
In 1950 Mermelstein was drafted into the United States Army and says he served as an instructor at a military intelligence school. He then returned to college and then later worked at the United Nations.
Mermelstein then married his wife Emma Jane and they became the parents of four children. Mermelstein himself then established his Auschwitz Study Foundation and launched a
career on the lecture circuit, talking about the Holocaust and his experiences during that period. In 1979 he published his memoirs.
Mermelstein claimed that since 1945 he made ten trips to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in the following years: 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980.30
It was then, according to Mermelstein, on November 22, 1980, he first received a letter from the Institute for Historical Review, inviting him to participate in the $50,000 reward
contest for proof that Jews had been homicidally gassed at Auschwitz.
Although Mel Mermelstein would re-write history to suggest that it was first the IHR that sought out Mermelstein -- singled him out -- for the purpose of harassing him, it was, if truth be told, Mermelstein who first challenged the IHR.
Mermelstein's first published attack on the IHR appeared as early as July 29, 1980 in a letter to the editor of the Long Beach Independent/Press Telegram, although in this version
one of the newspaper's editors, showing obvious discretion, chose to delete the name of the IHR and its editorial advisors whom Mermelstein had named.
Evidently, as it was later discovered, Mermelstein had sent similar letters to several publications. It was a similar attack on the IHR (mentioning it by name) that appeared as a
Who Is Mel Mermelstein? - 35
letter to the editor published in the International Edition of the Jerusalem Post for the week of August 24-30, 1980. This time, however, the letters editor was not so discreet. Here's what Mermelstein told his readers:
"By now you may have heard of the so-called "prestigious" names:
1) Dr. Austin J. App (retired) La Salle College, Philadelphia
2) John Bennett, Victoria Council for Civil Liberties, Australia
3) Dr. Reinhard K. Buchner, California State University, Long Beach
4) Dr. Arthur R. Butz, Northwestern University, Illinois
5) James E. Egolf, Duquesne University, Pennsylvania
6) Dr. Robert Faurisson, University of Lyon-2, France
7) Ditlieb Felderer, Bible Research, Sweden
8) Dr. James J. Martin, Institute of [sic] Historical Review
9) Udo Walendy, Verlag Fur Volkstum & Zeitgeschichteforschung.
"You may have read about a recent publication of the so-called 'Journal of Historical Review' which originated in Torrance, California. If by chance you have not heard of these gentlemen, nor read about the so-called 'Journal of Historical Review,' allow me to inform you that these university professors, some of them former Nazis of the old Hitlerite regime, have taken upon themselves to use and abuse our colleges and universities throughout the western world, in particular the United States, to spread lies, hatred and bigotry vis-a-vis the subject known as the 'Holocaust' .
"As one who survived the infernos of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, my eyes are still burning from the vision of that nightmare and my ears are still ringing with the agonizing sounds of men, women and little children who were lured and driven into the gas chambers, disguised as shower rooms, solely and exclusively because they were Jewish.
"These 'prestigious' gentlemen ... as well as the bigoted organizations they represent, have the gall to offer any survivor of the Holocaust a $50,000, and possibly $100,000 award if he or she can prove that indeed gassings of men, women and little children had actually taken place during that
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awesome period known as the 'Holocaust.'
"I shall be leaving for the 10th time to a survivors' conference in October to be held at Auschwitz. Perhaps some of those 'prestigious' gentlemen would like to accompany me, at which time, I could physically point out the places from where I saw the actual gassings of men, women and little children in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms."31
So wrote Mel Mermelstein, clearly looking for a fight. It was, obviously, Mermelstein who had singled out the IHR for abuse and not vice-versa, as Mermelstein would later claim.
(It might be noted, to set the historical record straight, that the so-called "former Nazis of the old Hitlerite regime" that Mermelstein had discovered among the ranks of the IHR
advisors was a former soldier in the German Army during World War II. Dr. Reinhard K. Buchner. He had served in his nation's armed forces as did millions of other young Germans.
(During a legal deposition, much later, Mermelstein refused to acknowledge that there was a difference between common fighting men and "former Nazis of the old Hitlerite regime.")
Needless to say, Mermelstein's letter came to the attention of the IHR. Then-IHR Director David McCalden, felt compelled to respond. In a letter dated November 20,
McCalden (using his pen name, Lewis Brandon) wrote Mermelstein.
At this juncture, it is critical to note that McCalden's response to Mermelstein was, completely unilateral. It was, essentially, a personal letter written by McCalden. His letter,
particularly the offer made therein, was not authorized by the IHR's advisory board.32 Here's what McCalden advised Mermelstein in that letter:
"At our 1979 Revisionist Convention we announced a $50,000 reward for proof of [the allegation that Jews were fatally gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz]. To date, no one
has stepped forward, and at the 1980 Revisionist Convention we suspended the reward and replaced it with a $25,000 reward for proof that The Diary of Anne Frank is authentic, and another $25,000 reward for proof that Jews were turned into bars of soap by the Nazis.
"In the circumstances, we will re-open the $50,000
Who Is Mel Mermelstein? - 37
reward so that you can apply. I enclose the necessary application forms. Please note that the evidence will be judged along the same standards as evidence in a U.S. criminal court; not the standards of the Nuremberg [War Crimes] Trials.
"If we do not hear from you, we will be obliged to draw our own conclusions, and publicize this fact to the mass media, including the Jerusalem Post."33
McCalden concluded his letter with a standard suggestion that he looked forward to hearing from Mermelstein "very soon."
As noted, McCalden had erred in sending this letter of offer to Mermelstein. He had not first cleared this letter with the IHR's board, inasmuch as the initial $50,000 reward offer had already been formally withdrawn.
It was approximately one month later that the IHR received a letter from William J. Cox, an attorney hired by Mermelstein. Cox wrote the IHR advising that Mermelstein had accepted the offer in McCalden's letter of November 20.
It was, incidentally, only at this time that the IHR's board learned that McCalden had written the unauthorized letter re-opening the reward to Mermelstein.34 This presented a
problem, of course, but the offer had been made and the IHR was fully equipped to respond to any "evidence" that Mermelstein might present.
As "evidence" of gassings of Jews at Auschwitz supplied by Mermelstein, Cox attached a sworn declaration by Mermelstein outlining, briefly, an overview of Mermelstein's experiences in the World War II concentration camps, including his claim that he saw women and children being driven into a tunnel that led into the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mermelstein also supplied a copy of his book By Bread Alone as further supplementary "evidence."
"Inasmuch as your offer letter established that the standard of proof shall be that which prevails in United States Criminal Courts," wrote Cox, "Mr. Mermelstein assumes that
the sufficiency of his evidence will be judged by an impartial fact finder, that all proceedings will be open to public and media observation, and that the matter will be resolved in a timely manner.
"It is suggested that the proceeding be televised under a
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system which allows viewers to vote on the outcome and which ensures to all parties a just and fair basis for determining whether the contract now entered into has been satisfied. Such a program is available through Warner Communications, State QUBE, in Columbus, Ohio."35
It was then that Mermelstein, through his attorney, made it clear that he meant business: Mermelstein was clearly aiming to get the IHR tangled up in court. He was already anticipating trouble.
"The final paragraph of your letter emphasizes that you wish to resolve this matter 'very soon,"' wrote Cox. "Since Mr. Mermelstein agrees with that premise, and shows a similar
desire, it seems not unreasonable to demand that review and validation be completed in an equally timely manner as he has responded to your offer.
"Therefore, if no response is heard by January 20,1981, civil proceedings to enforce the contract will be instituted, naming the Institute for Historical Review and yourself personally as defendants."36
Mermelstein's attorney included with his letter an "additional offer of proof" which featured a list of "eyewitnesses" (led by Mermelstein himself), along with a
host of other former concentration camp inmates who would testify "to prove that gas chambers [were] used to execute Jewish prisoners during World War II at Auschwitz-Birkenau."37
Among those listed as a potential witness who "will testify" was Dr. Miklos Nysili, a former Auschwitz prisoner who had advertised himself, in promoting his own memoirs, as having been what Mermelstein described as an "inmate assistant" to the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called "Angel of Death" and perhaps one of the now best-known figures in Holocaust lore.
Mengele, in post-war years, emerged as one of the great villains of history, perhaps ranking just second to Hitler and slightly ahead of the devil himself. The only problem with
Nysili's potential testimony was this: the former prisoner had been dead some 25 years. Mermelstein's attorney also promised that he would provide physical evidence to back up the claims made by his client.
Who Is Mel Mermelstein?- 39
The "evidence" listed included: a) photographs of Mermelstein's family; b) Zyklon-B gas crystals recovered at Auschwitz; c) ashes of cremated prisoners recovered at
Auschwitz with authentication of the source; d) human hair recovered at Auschwitz (with authentication, of course); and, of all things, e) "other physical, scientific and documentary evidence from the Auschwitz Museum, the exact nature, title, description and contents . . . as yet unknown" to Mermelstein.38
(Note, however, as the IHR's officers and staff noted at the time, none of this constituted hard, forensic, scientific evidence that Jews had indeed been homicidally gassed at Auschwitz as told in the standard histories of the Holocaust.)
Responding on behalf of the IHR to Mermelstein's submissions, McCalden advised Cox in a letter dated January 20 that the IHR was considering Mermelstein's offer of
"proof" and that the IHR would get back to them "as soon as we have arrived at some concrete decisions."39
Six days later Cox again wrote, saying that "We continue to consider a speedy resolution of this matter quite important in that," he added, a bit melodramatically, "it is the honor of Mr. Mermelstein that is daily put into question by your delay.
"Therefore," Cox reiterated, "unless you perform in accordance with the contract in which you have now entered by February 6, 1981 we shall be forced to file an action in the Superior Court to enforce his rights."40
Still faced with Simon Wiesenthal's claims (not yet withdrawn, although soon to be), but fully intending to respond to Mermelstein's prodding, McCalden responded by letter, just one day later, on January 27.
"I have now discussed your client's claim with my colleagues," McCalden told Cox. "We also had another claim from Mr. Simon Wiesenthal. He wishes to claim the $50,000
for proof of gassings and the $25,000 for proof that Anne Frank's Diary is authentic. He declined to claim the $25,000 for proof that Jews were turned into soap.
"In the circumstances, we have decided to deal with Mr. Wiesenthal's claim for the Anne Frank Diary authenticity, and then deal simultaneously with both his and your client's claim for the $50,000 later.
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"I do hope," noted McCalden, "that this will not inconvenience you or your client. Please assure him that we intend to deal fully and correctly with his claim."41
The first passing mention of Mermelstein in the pages of the IHR's newsletter -- in February, 1981 -- suggested that Mermelstein really wasn't taken seriously. With good reason:
Mermelstein's "evidence" just didn't constitute evidence that there had been gas chambers utilized in the murder of Jews -- or anybody else -- in the concentration camps in Europe.
The IHR Newsletter later commented that while what Mermelstein had submitted might have been sufficient to convict a prisoner at the bar in one of the post-World War II
"show trials" of alleged Nazi war criminals, it would not have been enough to prove the point in a U.S. court of law.42 The IHR had been specific on that point, but it seemed to have gone beyond Mermelstein's comprehension.
However, Mermelstein was evidently determined to prevent the IHR from ever actually pursuing his claim along the lines initially laid forth in the reward offer. Instead, Mermelstein and Cox decided to bring legal action.
it was on February 19, 1981 that Mermelstein filed suit against the IHR in the Superior Court of the State of California for Los Angeles County.
His suit caught the IHR by surprise. It was totally unexpected. The IHR still fully intended to address his claims. However, Mermelstein had never really given the IHR a chance to proceed under the terms it had outlined. Mermelstein's case was based on the following claims:
Breach of contract. Mermelstein claimed that he had entered into a contract with the IHR by responding to its reward offer and that the IHR had failed to make payment
when he provided his "proof' that the Holocaust had indeed happened.
Anticipatory breach of contract. Mermelstein claimed that the IHR had repudiated Mermelstein's stated intent to complete his performance of all conditions required of him at the time he presumably entered into a contract with the IHR.
Libel. Mermelstein claimed that a November, 1980 bulletin entitled Jewish Information (published in Sweden by revisionist researcher Ditlieb Felderer) had published
defamatory material about him. (In fact, the bulletin in question was an independent publication not issued by the IHR; nor did the IHR have any advance knowledge that the bulletin had been sent to Mermelstein by its publisher.
(Mermelstein claimed that Felderer's bulletin coupled with David McCalden's initial letter from the IHR -- constituted a "two tiered response"43 from the IHR. This, of course, was simply not true.)
Injurious Denial of Established Fact. Mermelstein alleged that the very act of the IHR questioning details about the "Holocaust" was somehow injurious to Mermelstein
because it was an "attempt [by the IHR] to rewrite a part of accepted history [in which Mermelstein], by virtue of his birth, was forced to play an agonizing role.
"The IHR knew or should have known that their denial of the Holocaust, in which 6,000,000 persons of Jewish ethnic
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origin were murdered, would cause grave mental anguish to one who was the sole survivor of his family and, who would by implication, be labeled a liar for writing and speaking about its effect."44
(It should be noted that this is perhaps the first -- and only -- time in recorded history that such a charge of "injurious denial of established fact" has ever been incorporated in a civil -- or criminal -- action of any kind, at least in the duly recorded legal annals of the Western, non-communist world. There is no known precedent for such an allegation. In short, it was a wholly concocted tort not legally recognized anywhere among civilized peoples.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress. Mermelstein complained that because he was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust that the IHR and the other defendants should have known that the initial reward offer addressed to Mermelstein would cause emotional distress to Mermelstein.
According to Mermelstein's complaint, he "suffered and continues to suffer great mental anguish, severe emotional and physical distress and has been injured in mind and body to wit:
he has suffered from loss of sleep; his nightmares of the suffering and torment endured in Nazi Concentration Camps have recurred; and he has experienced other severe nervous shock ... "45
(Oddly, however, Mermelstein never explained why, if he was so emotionally distraught, he had chosen to engage in repeated give-and-take with the IHR in a continuing exchange
of letters, even accepting the reward offer in the first place. One might think he would be inclined to avoid his perceived tormentors.)
Declaratory relief. Mermelstein sought declaratory relief, demanding that he be permitted to further engage the IHR so that the terms of the alleged contract could be fulfilled: i.e. that Mermelstein would be permitted to present his evidence to a tribunal; that the IHR be required to hear his evidence first (rather than first hear the evidence presented by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal), and that a "fair and impartial"46 tribunal hear his evidence in an attempt to claim the $50,000 reward for proof that Jews were gassed at
A Nuisance Suit - 43
Auschwitz. Mermelstein claimed that he would suffer "further infliction of mental and physical distress"47 until the matter could be resolved.
All in all, Mermelstein demanded $17,000,000, including general damages and punitive damages (the latter being assessed against a party as punishment for infliction of the general damages.)
In his complaint, Mermelstein alleged that "As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of defendants . . . [Mermelstein] has undergone and continues to undergo
treatment with a psychiatrist for emotional distress, pain and suffering, reluctance [sic] of nightmares, and anxiety arising out of defendants' conduct including the denial that [Mermelstein's] mother and two sisters were murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz by method of gassing.
"The evidence will reveal that plaintiff had seen Dr. Borenstein, a psychiatrist, from approximately 1969 to 1975 to deal mostly with post-traumatic stress disorder associated with
his horrendous experience as a concentration camp survivor during his internment. Dr. Borenstein will further testify that in approximately 1975 [Mermelstein] was better able to deal with his war experience and the post-traumatic stress disorder and was able to channel his emotions associated with that period in a largely constructive manner. At the end of his treatment in 1975, his nightmares, anxieties, pain and suffering had substantially decreased.
"Dr. Borenstein will further testify that when plaintiff received the direct challenge by defendants IHR in the letter addressed to him of November 20, 1980 and was the recipient
of the subsequent conduct of defendants . . . directed at [Mermelstein], he regressed substantially with reference to the severe emotional distress, nightmares and related emotional experiences and flashbacks pertaining to the loss of his entire immediate family at the hands of the Nazis in concentration camps.
"Dr. Borenstein and other expert witnesses will testify that plaintiff suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe emotional distress at the present time proximately caused by defendants. "48
Not content with emphasizing his own previous long-term
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mental instability that had flared up again as a consequence -- or so he said -- of his engagement with the IHR, Mermelstein went on to complain that the IHR's outrageous conduct included "their concerted conduct of picking on"49 Mermelstein (who had first attacked the IHR in print in an internationally-circulated newspaper, not vice versa).
Mermelstein also claimed to "still be suffering the effects of observing and being the victim of the most heinous acts of atrocities and genocide committed in history."50 (emphasis
added.) Was Mermelstein now claiming to being a victim of genocide?
(To prove "intentional infliction of emotional distress" one must prove not only outrageous conduct on the part of the individual accused of committing that misdeed, but also the intention of causing such distress or reckless disregard of the probability of causing such distress. What's more, one must prove that actual and identifiable emotional distress did indeed result and that the actions of the accused were indeed, the actual and proximate cause of that distress.)
Named as defendants -- the parties who had done so much damage to Mermelstein's bank account and his psyche -- were:
The Institute for Historical Review;
The Legion for the Survival of Freedom (the non-profit corporation which is the parent company of the institute);
The Noontide Press (an independent publishing subsidiary of the legion);
Lewis Brandon (the pseudonym used by IHR director David McCalden);
Three directors of the Legion for the Survival of Freedom: Bruce Holman (then deceased), LaVonne Furr and Elisabeth Carto, wife of IHR founder Willis A. Carto; and
The totally independent Jewish Information Bulletin (published in Sweden by Ditlieb Felderer).
After the dust had settled and the IHR was able to assess the situation, the IHR summarized the real nature of Mermelstein's complaint in a special report on the case for its readers: "Mermelstein's obvious intention is to put the IHR out of business once and for all. What else could be concluded? "Here is a man who authored a book on his Holocaust experiences and travels the country lecturing about it, yet he
A Nuisance Suit - 45
claims that [the IHR has] 'revived those terrible memories' and caused him sleepless nights and a failing business; he claims [the IHR] 'breached a contract' with him when his end of the 'contract' was in fact an unaccepted counter-offer (emphasis supplied);
"He claims [the IHR] injured him by 'denying established fact'; he accuses the IHR of libel because he received from Sweden an angry letter from someone who took offense at a
letter in which Mermelstein had published previously in the Jerusalem Post in which he called those associated with the Journal of Historical Review, 'bigots.'
"Here is a man who flew to Tel Aviv along with his lawyer to 'brief' Prime Minister Menachem Begin on the lawsuit, to inform the chief Israeli official that they are
pursuing this action 'for the public good' and to get Begin's personal stamp of approval 'for the work [being done] to fight anti-Semitism.'
"Mermelstein's action against [the IHR] has nothing really to do with the $50,000 reward. He is evading that in an attempt to manipulate the courts."51
Serving as Mermelstein's attorney in this legal assault on the IHR was William Cox, a quirky and somewhat eccentric Texas-born gadfly who had once run for president as an independent candidate.
In a touch of irony, Cox happened to show up at an IHR conference to serve legal papers on the IHR. When the meeting organizers became aware of Cox's uninvited presence,
they no doubt surprised Cox when they agreed with his suggestion that he be permitted to address the gathering. Explaining his "idealism" and the fact that he was handling Mermelstein's case pro bono -- Mermelstein was picking up the expenses -- Cox chided the IHR for its interest in historical revisionism.
The IHR Newsletter noted that "Before Cox was invited in, a vote was taken and the overwhelming majority of attendees agreed that he should be granted the privilege of
speaking simply because he was there and willing. Can you imagine," commented the newsletter, "such a privilege being extended to a known revisionist at a meeting sponsored by extermination theorists?"52
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Initially the IHR did not take Mermelstein's apparent nuisance suit that seriously, it being so obviously frivolous in nature. The IHR's director commented (incorrectly), at the time, that the suit "will not be too difficult to dispose of.53
However, the media onslaught that accompanied the filing of Mermelstein's suit -- a nationwide barrage of misinformation, coupled with media cheerleading on
Mermelstein's behalf -- made it all too clear that the work of the IHR -- indeed its very survival -- was at stake.
Fast rushing to Mermelstein's side was the International Auschwitz Committee (IAC), an agency of the Polish communist government [then still in power]. In its February,
1981 bulletin, the IAC hailed the lawsuit by "Comrade Mel Mermelstein" and pointed out that in a letter to the IAC (of which Mermelstein's own Auschwitz Study Foundation was a member organization) the comrade "asked for moral support."54
The New York Times, which brags that it prints "all the news that's fit to print," found Mermelstein's nuisance suit newsworthy. "Auschwitz survivor sues for prize for proving Germans gassed Jews"55 declared a headline in the Times.
Remarkably, the Times account of the lawsuit was relatively straightforward and factual. The Times even took several paragraphs to either quote IHR spokesmen directly or otherwise summarize, in its own fashion, the IHR's views.
For example, reported the Times: "According to the institute version of World War II history, large numbers of Jews were arrested and mistreated by the Nazis and herded to
concentration camps, and many died from malnutrition, typhus and other diseases. But it contends that gas chambers were not used to murder the Jews and that there was no campaign of genocide.
"The Zyklon-B gas found at Auschwitz and other camps, it says, was used only to delouse the clothing of inmates, and what have been described as gas chambers were really 'mortuaries' where bodies were taken after deaths occurred before they were burned."56
The Times report was remarkable, perhaps, because of its relative objectivity. What's more, this was probably the first time that the work of the IHR was publicized on a national --
A Nuisance Suit - 47
even international -- basis in the pages of an Establishment news organ.
The media reports about the case suggested Mermelstein was mis-stating the facts (as indeed his lawsuit certainly did). In other instances, it may have either been confusion in regard
to Mermelstein's very bizarre allegations or, perhaps, outright distortion, by the media.
Whatever the reason, media misinformation (deliberate or otherwise) coupled with Mermelstein's misstatements of the truth would continue to be a hallmark of the ten year battle
between the IHR and the professional Holocaust survivor and courtroom veteran.
Obviously, the IHR had never refused to consider his claim. The IHR had advised Mermelstein that it would consider Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's claim first. Since Wiesenthal had withdrawn his claim, the IHR advised Mermelstein that his claim would then be considered.57 What's more, as noted previously, the IHR had no responsibility whatsoever for the publication by Ditlieb Felderer that Mermelstein claimed had been libelous and defamatory. First of all, the IHR had absolutely no control over or financial stake in the publication, entitled Jewish Information, which originated in Sweden and had been sent to Mermelstein from the faraway address. Secondly, the IHR had no idea that the allegedly defamatory material had been sent to Mermelstein until well after the fact.58
Confronted with the reality of a $17 million action -- no matter how frivolous in fact -- the IHR, with great difficulty, finally found an attorney willing to take the case and defend
the IHR. Lawyers, including a self-styled "civil liberties" lawyer, did not relish the prospect of defending such a controversial case in the face of a heavy-handed national media onslaught against such a controversial client.
Ultimately, Richard Fusilier, a former police officer, came aboard as the IHR's attorney after telling the IHR that if the institute couldn't find another attorney that he would, with very serious reservations, take the case.
Fusilier wrote Mermelstein's attorney, Cox, submitting a detailed recapitulation of the original $50,000 offer which -- if accepted -- would have ultimately resulted in the very type of
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forum that the IHR had in mind in the first place: a panel or tribunal which would have publicly considered the evidence that Mermelstein had submitted in order to claim the reward. Yet, Mermelstein's attorney failed to respond.59
"All we asked," the IHR advised its supporters, "was that [Mermelstein] follow the written claim procedure and be prepared to submit his evidence and testimony before a
tribunal. He decided instead to stick with his lawsuit in the hope that the court would somehow try to enforce a contract that, indeed, never existed between the IHR and Mermelstein in the first place.
"That way, instead of having to present his evidence before experts who would judge the evidence on its own merits, he could mask and bypass the central issue by claiming
'libel' and 'injurious denial of established fact,' and destroy the IHR in the process."60
Mermelstein ultimately made his intentions toward the IHR very clear. "I'm going to get them if I have to spend the rest of my life . . ." he vowed.61
In the meantime, at IHR headquarters, there were some major changes underway. David McCalden (AKA Lewis Brandon) who had injudiciously -- and without prior
authorization -- reopened the reward offer to Mermelstein was fired in mid-April of 1981.
McCalden's actions in the Mermelstein affair were the last straw in what seemed like an ever-growing laundry list of reckless and ill-advised behavior, coupled with general mismanagement. The IHR's board determined that the institute could best proceed, particularly in light of the Mermelstein lawsuit, without McCalden being "inside" where he could do further damage.
However, the Mermelstein lawsuit proved to be a major preoccupation as it proceeded in the courts.
On June 3, 1981 Mermelstein expanded his assault on the IHR. Superior Court Judge Edward M. Ross allowed the professional survivor to add a new defendant: Willis A. Carto, the founder of both the IHR and Liberty Lobby, the Washington-based populist institution established in 1955. Mermelstein's decision to add Liberty Lobby as a defendant was hogwash, at best.
Liberty Lobby was totally independent in every way, shape and form from the IHR and certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with Mel Mermelstein or his problems with
the IHR. The only connection between Liberty Lobby and the IHR, in fact, was that Carto was the founder of both institutions.
Mermelstein, however, had concocted a gigantic conspiracy theory in which Carto and the wide assortment of organizations and institutions had somehow targeted him
(Mermelstein) for special treatment -- or mistreatment as the case may be.
At this juncture Liberty Lobby retained the services of Fullerton, California attorney Mark Von Esch to represent its interests in what was clearly a nuisance suit in which Liberty Lobby really and truly had no part.
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On August 26, 1981, however, Cox did file a motion for summary judgment against the IHR in the amount of $1,000,000, some $16,000,000 less than the original complaint demanded.
Summary judgment is granted when a judge determines that there are no questions of fact in the case that must be decided by a jury; that the case can be determined simply on
the legal questions presented and there are no issues of substantial controversy. As it was, the court rejected the motion for summary judgment and the case was ordered to proceed.
(Ultimately, because Ditlieb Felderer, publisher of the Jewish Information Bulletin, failed to respond to Mermelstein's suit, Felderer was found in default to Mermelstein to the tune of $5.25 million.)
Mermelstein's attorney also asked for the court, by judicial notice, to declare that the Holocaust was a historical fact not subject to dispute. This was, in effect, asking the court
to rule out any discussion or debate over details of the Holocaust during the forthcoming litigation.62
Attorney Cox had also concocted a strange theory alleging that his client had been "selected as the first specific American Jewish victim"63 of the IHR and that the institute had "conspiratorially, secretly, single-mindedly, skillfully -- at great cost to our democratic society and with immense financial reward"64 launched this campaign against Mermelstein.
Cox, in the meantime, was busy feeding such nonsense to the media, including, among other things, that the IHR was issuing publications "devoted to a long-term process of
persuading Americans of the validity of Hitlerian racial theories."65 Of course, the media -- virtually without question -- trumpeted Cox's outrageous (perhaps even libelous) claims.
In the midst of all of this, the silliness of Mermelstein's claim that the IHR's reward offer had somehow "forced" Mermelstein to relive the horrors of life during World War II became apparent. IHR researchers had discovered that Mermelstein had, in fact, become a minor -- maybe even major -- icon in the business of lecturing in Southern California about his experiences during the Holocaust.
The Offensive Escalates - 51
Mermelstein, the IHR learned, had given as many as 30 formally arranged lectures in the Los Angeles area, sometimes as many as two or three times a week, evidently
relishing the opportunity to discuss publicly, time and again, what he claimed in his lawsuit had caused him so much distress.66
Despite Cox's motion, the court ordered a continuance on the case until October 9, giving the IHR the opportunity to look into Mermelstein's past and present activities further, a
difficult task -- needless to say -- because of what proved to be many conflicting stories told by Mermelstein about his experiences during World War II.
It was during this period that attorney Cox found his role in the Mermelstein case being overshadowed by the entry into the case of a hard-driving and publicity-hungry law firm that
had eagerly stepped in and volunteered its services to Mermelstein.
By that time, as we have seen, Mermelstein had begun to attract not only additional media attention as a result of his campaign against the IHR, but also growing support in the
Jewish community which, hitherto, had not taken Mermelstein seriously.
The law firm in question was that of Allred, Maroko, Goldberg and Ribakoff. Its most prominent partner was feminist attorney, Gloria Allred, a talented, flamboyant, tough-talking and sometimes shrill advocate for whatever cause (usually feminist concerns) she latched upon. It was Maroko who stepped in as chief counsel for Mermelstein, declaring that he was donating his legal services on Mermelstein's behalf.
The 34-year-old son of a Polish-born father and a Hungarian mother (both of whom had been incarcerated at Auschwitz), Maroko had been born in Sweden where his parents had emigrated following World War II.
His parents -- who had clearly "survived the Holocaust," later settled in Los Angeles where the younger Maroko ultimately ended up in the practice of law.67
(Maroko is said to have donated the 4000 hours of legal time he reported to have spent on the Mermelstein case during the 4 1/2 year period that his firm handled Mermelstein's
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campaign against the IHR. At $200 per hour Maroko's gift amounted to $400,000.68) With high powered, high-profile support such as this, Mermelstein was very much riding high in the saddle. He had the endorsement of influential people and organizations with a lot of money behind them, and they were determined to help Mermelstein destroy the IHR and the whole revisionist movement.
Mermelsteins new attorneys had an agenda: they were determined to destroy the IHR pure and simple. They swung into action, preparing to bombard the court with the details they wanted before the court as Judge Thomas Johnson (to whom the case had been assigned) considered their request to take judicial notice of the "fact" that Jews had been homicidally gassed at Auschwitz.
In California, the doctrine of "permissive" judicial notice is set forth in the Evidence Code Section 452 which states that: "Judicial notice may be taken of the following matters ... : (h) Facts and propositions that are not reasonably subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy."
In short, a fact may be judicially noticed only if it is not reasonably subject to dispute, and is capable of immediate and accurate verification by resorting to an authority of indisputable accuracy.69
The IHR, in the meantime, was busy preparing its own response to Mermelstein's motion for judicial notice, preparing the evidence it hoped would persuade the judge to reject Mermelstein's motion.
In a declaration the IHR sought to provide an overview of the controversy surrounding the alleged Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II and to prove that, yes, there was a matter of debate involving the very subject addressed in the motion for judicial notice.
The IHR's declaration stated: "A proposition cannot be proven merely by assembling an extensive collection of material in its support. The character of the evidence is
decisive, not its magnitude. The evidence must be reliable, self-consistent and accurate.
"For example, numerous affidavits and statements from 'eyewitnesses,' as well as extensive published material from books could be presented in support of the proposition that
'flying saucers' piloted by alien beings from other planets have landed on earth, and that humans have communicated and
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traveled with the aliens. But such evidence, while very extensive, would not be sufficient to have a court take judicial notice of the existence of 'flying saucers. '"70
The IHR pointed out that while the question of whether Jews were gassed at Auschwitz might have political implications, the revisionist historians who have disputed the
claim that Jews were gassed at the camp in Poland have come from a broad range of political viewpoints.
The first major dissenter, the IHR noted, was French pacifist and socialist Paul Rassinier who was himself interned by the German Gestapo at the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps during the war and, in post-war years, was elected to the French National Assembly and decorated for his anti-Nazi resistance activities.71
Further, according to the IHR, "Not just the 'gas chamber' issue, but the whole question of what actually happened to the Jews of Europe during the Second World War is the subject of growing controversy and dispute."72
As a specific example, the IHR cited the massive 760-page work, The History of the Germans, published in German by the prestigious Propylaeen publishing house. The author
was Dr. Helmut Diwald, a widely-praised historian with senior status at the University of Erlangen.
The IHR quoted extensively from a portion of Diwald's book entitled "The Final Solution" in which Diwald pointed out:
"Countless works have been published and claims made since 1945 which cannot be proven and which cynically add to the infamy. The most horrible events of modern times have
been exploited through the use of distortions, deceptions and exaggerations for the purpose of totally disqualifying a people."73
The IHR also cited, as an example, a statement in a letter to the Los Angeles Times of May 16, 1981 from a teacher of modern Jewish history at the University of California at Los Angeles. The letter read in part:
"The fact is that the Nazis never used the bodies of Jews, or for that matter anyone else, for the production of soap. The soap rumor was prevalent both during and after the war. It may
have had its origin in the cadaver factory atrocity story that
Not Reasonably Subject to Dispute? - 55
came out of World War I ... The soap rumor was thoroughly investigated after the war and proved to be untrue."74 Ironically, the author of this statement was Professor Deborah Lipstadt, who ultimately emerged as the most widely-quoted critic of revisionist historians after she published her error ridden study of the holocaust revisionist movement, Denying the Holocaust, in the spring of 1993.
However, as the IHR pointed out, "Actually, Deborah Lipstadt is not quite accurate. The soap rumor has never been 'thoroughly investigated.' To the contrary, the story was
widely circulated as part of the official 'historical verdict' of the Nuremberg trials. Once again, the 'evidence' for gassing at Auschwitz is just as reliable as the 'evidence' for the baseless allegation that the Germans used Jewish bodies to manufacture soap.75
"In conclusion, the material submitted by [Mermelstein's attorneys] in support of the contention that Jews were killed by gassing at Auschwitz during the Second World War is unreliable, contradictory and, in some cases, demonstrably false. It is not compelling evidence. Indeed, the very evidence submitted by plaintiff casts doubt on the contention that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz ...
"Furthermore, the arguments and evidence brought forward by those who disagree with the contention that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz are reasonable and worthy of
consideration. The contention that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz may reasonably be the subject of dispute."76
The IHR's attorney, Richard Fusilier, argued that Mermelstein's request for the taking of judicial notice should be denied because it concerned a subject which was uncertain and disputable. Weber's declaration backed that contention.
So it was that the issue finally came before Judge Johnson. Brushing aside a request by Fusilier, asking for specific examples of what exactly constituted "evidence" of
the Holocaust, Judge Johnson said, "Any number of sources. Many books. Sources of reasonably undisputed accuracy."77 On October 9, 1981 Johnson ruled that "The court does take judicial notice that Jews were gassed to death in Poland at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 . . . It is not reasonably subject to dispute."78
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In a special report to IHR supporters, the IHR Newsletter commented: "The court has done the almost inconceivable in setting itself up as the final say on what is, and what is not,
history. It has ruled -- as historical fact -- on an issue which has been a matter of controversy among historians for years. "Never before in the U.S. has a court taken upon itself the mis-assigned responsibility to render a judgment on a question of a purely historical aspect as this has never been within the scope, purpose or authority of our legal/judicial system.
"What is more, this ruling has nothing whatever to do with the issue at controversy. The issue is supposed to be: Did Mermelstein have a binding contract with the IHR when he submitted what he contends to be his proof of gassings at Auschwitz -- and, if so, did the IHR breach the contract by postponing its handling of the claim?
"But this ruling is another whole ball game, and the ramifications are ominous to say the least; for if the court has the power to rule on and enforce a historical opinion, then it
follows that the court has the power to prevent actions which dispute this opinion -- and the door is thrown wide open for people like Mermelstein to easily win in court against anyone who voices or publishes disagreement with orthodox Holocaust notions.
"In the USSR, if you criticize Establishment history, they put you away. In France . . . if you dispute Holocaust claims, you are found guilty of 'incitement to discrimination and racial
hatred' and ruined financially. In West Germany, over 400 people have been jailed or fined for the same reasons.
"But up until now, U.S. courts have left these matters to the academics, i.e. private parties, where they rightly belong, in the recognition that the law is way outside its constituted
domain in passing formal judgments on matters of historical significance.
"Mermelstein, of course, has a right to take us to court if he feels we breached a contract with him, libeled him, or caused him undue emotional stress. But just consider the dangers inherent in a judicial system that proclaims itself morally and legally constituted to authenticate a version of history -- for here we have the trappings of an inquisition, a kangaroo judicial system operating not on the principles of
Not Reasonably Subject to Dispute? - 57
justice and truth, but on fiat and legalistic abstractionism.
"One of Mermelstein's 'causes of action,' as indicated in his complaint, was 'Injurious Denial of Established Fact.' Every attorney with whom we consulted pointed out the utter
absurdity of this becoming an issue, for it was unheard of in U.S. law. But it has, in fact, become the issue. Imagine, suing someone for damages for having published a revised historical account. [Emphasis IHR's.]
"The whole point is this: the IHR's reward offer stated specifically that all claims would be subject to evaluation by a tribunal of experts to be named by the IHR, and Mermelstein knew it. But by the time we responded to his claim -- which was only a preliminary step in the claim procedure, as outlined in the rules -- he had already filed his $17 million lawsuit and was on his way to getting a court to decide on a question on which a court had no business ruling.
"Leaving aside the fact that Mermelstein's 'proof' was no proof at all, it is incredible that he and Cox (and who knows who else) could convince a court of law to authenticate his 'proof' and pass a ruling of such implicitly dangerous magnitude."79
Mermelstein's own notions about freedom of speech in America were made very clear when, in several press interviews, the professional survivor commented favorably on foreign restrictions upon freedom of expression.
According to one columnist, Mermelstein "would have preferred redress" against the IHR "through a Canadian-style government prosecution," but, alas, "Mr. Mermelstein didn't
have that option because of the free-speech provisions of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."80
What's more, appearing on the popular Ray Briem radio call-in show, Mermelstein commented favorably on a West German law making it a federal offense to insult "Holocaust
survivors." Declared Mermelstein, his voice trembling in resentment: "We don't even have a law like that in this country."81
Mermelstein had already made affirmative noises advocating restrictions on freedom of speech in this country. In a letter to then-Sen. S. I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.), Mermelstein
advocated passage of a federal law declaring that "Jews can be
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criminally libeled if a defendant claims that the murder of Jews has been a Zionist swindle."82
To his credit, however, Hayakawa responded to Mermelstein's demand by suggesting that "While I can appreciate your call for such a law, it might have First Amendment problems."83
Essentially, courts are permitted to take judicial notice of indisputable facts to avoid frivolous time-wasting in proving them; in law school, students are told that a court can take judicial notice of the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
However, a search of the legal history of judicial notice, covering 400 cases, turned up four precedents involving historical issues, for example, a court took judicial notice of the fact there had been a Spanish-American War.
In another case, the court took judicial notice of the law of gravity. However, never before had a court taken judicial notice of an alleged event or events in history in which there was any consequential dissent, such as, for example, in the history of what has come to be called "the Holocaust."84
The affirmation of judicial notice was a victory for Mermelstein, but not, in fact, material to the legal issue of the case -- the alleged breach of contract. However, the media was ready to proclaim Holocaust celebrity Mel Mermelstein a "winner," and he was eager to bask in the glory.
The media, of course, was quick to jump on Judge Johnson's judicial notice that Jews had been gassed at Auschwitz in 1944. The media hyped the theme that those who doubted any aspect of the Holocaust had been dealt a resounding courtroom defeat.
The Washington Post, somewhat circumspect, reported in a rather cryptic headline that "Assertion is dismissed in no Holocaust matter," and told its readers that "A right-wing group's assertion that the Holocaust never happened was dismissed . . ."85 a summary, which, needless to say, was not precisely the case.
The Post did note that Johnson's decision had, effectively, eviscerated the issue of the Holocaust -- and what did or didn't happen -- from the core of the Mermelstein case.
In an interesting nod to the revisionist argument, however, the Post said that the IHR "has argued that, although millions of Jews were arrested by the Nazis before and during World
War II, they died of disease, malnutrition and Allied bombing, not through any planned extermination campaign."86
The Post also admitted that "eleven persons holding doctorate degrees"87 served on the IHR's advisory board, an inadvertent admission, perhaps, that the IHR's scholars were not, as some would have suggested, semi-literate (even illiterate) cranks.
The Los Angeles Times headlined the story, declaring 'Holocaust given legal recognition;" However, even the Times described Johnson's ruling as "a strange legal pronouncement,"88 pointing out that "the mere acknowledgment of the gassings delighted Mermelstein and a courtroom packed with his supporters."89
Richard Fusilier, the IHR's attorney, correctly observed that the judge's decision was "political"90 in nature. Unfortunately, though, Fusilier went on to declare, to the dismay of
IHR officials and supporters, that although he was representing the IHR he tended to believe Mermelstein inasmuch as he had been among the American soldiers who helped liberate Dachau
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(and therefore, presumably, had seen emaciated corpses that he believed were Jewish victims "gassed" by the Nazis).91
The October 19, 1981 edition of Newsweek magazine featured a full-page story on the Mermelstein affair under the title "Footnote to the holocaust" with a large picture of Mermelstein staring out at the reader from the center of the page. The Holocaust survivor was shown displaying an over-sized framed picture of Buchenwald inmates in their bunks following the liberation by Allied soldiers. Mermelstein contended for years -- as did his fellow survivor, Elie Wiesel -- that his visage appeared in that photo.
Mermelstein and his attorneys and supporters, of course, were hailing the decision as a victory. Dr. Jack Rabin, a national officer of the Zionist Organization of America, was among those devoting himself to fund-raising on behalf of Mermelstein. Rabin expressed his confidence not only that Mermelstein was guaranteed victory in the forthcoming trial, but that the case would be history-making insofar as combating holocaust revisionism was concerned.
According to Rabin, Judge Johnson's ruling taking judicial notice of the Holocaust as a fact, virtually conceded the essential point to Mermelstein. However, said Rabin, the case went far beyond the issue of Mermelstein's individual complaint against the IHR.92
"The case," said Rabin, "will probably establish new law in California and throughout the United States. This case will then become the basis for class action lawsuits of survivors of the Holocaust against the organized Jew-baiters who allege the Holocaust did not occur.
"The case is probably the most important case involving our people fighting anti-Semitism that has ever occurred in the United States. It is a case with immense legal, social and historical significance for the United States and the world. It certainly will affect every Jew, not only Holocaust survivors, in the fighting against Jew-baiting and anti-Semitism."93
The case, however, continued to lay in the courts. The legal process has never been known for its speed. By the spring of 1982, Mermelstein's first attorney, the quirky William Cox, had faded from the scene. Gloria Allred and Michael Maroko were handling Mermelstein's offensive.
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Meanwhile, also, the IHR's attorney, Richard Fusilier, had also left the case. Hired on as the IHR's counsel was G. G. Baumen, a conscientious, conservative and hard-working attorney.
Although no partisan of the IHR's point of view, Baumen was willing to serve as the IHR's courtroom representative. The IHR was undaunted, despite even Judge Johnson's judicial notice. Effective April 1, 1982 the IHR announced a new reward offer of $50,000 payable "to any person who can prove that gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings existed at or in Auschwitz Concentration Camp during World War II."94
The new reward offer terminated at midnight, December 31, 1982. Funds from IHR supporters to back up the $50,000 claim were put in a trust earmarked specifically for the reward offer payment, if indeed someone were to come up with the evidence required.
Commenting on the judge's judicial notice, the IHR said, "There is every reason to believe that Judge Johnson never even read the books which he claimed were 'reliable sources' and which were not 'reasonably subject to dispute.' For if he had done so with an eye toward establishing the truth, the errors, glaring contradictions, physical impossibilities, overwhelming emotionalism and lack of real evidence should have caused him the same critical doubt that established in its own way the springboard of Holocaust revisionism. "95
There was an interesting development during the course of the litigation: Mel Mermelstein, thinly disguised, made his first nationally-broadcast television appearance. Actually, however, it wasn't Mermelstein. It was an actor playing him.
On March 17, 1982 NBC television's popular night-time drama, "Quincy," devoted its air time to a passion play which was nothing more than a bizarre roman à clefs -- albeit severely
inaccurate and frenzied to boot -- about the conflict between Mer