Holocaust Deniers and 9-11 Truth

We have talked about this in the past, but there is an interesting overlap between 9-11 Deniers and Holocaust Deniers. Perhaps the classic example of this is Eric Hufschmid, who goes so far as to call Dylan Avery and the Louder Than Words crew "Holocaust Promoters".

In a way, the convergence of 9-11 Denial and Holocaust Denial is not surprising. First, both groups posit vast plots to deceive the people as to a major historical event. Second, many anti-Semites immediately leapt on the idea of the Mossad as being behind the 9-11 attacks, putting them early in the 9-11 Denial Movement. And third, you have an intersection of many people wanting to move the story off 19 Islamofascist hijackers, including Muslims, Neo-Nazis and 9-11 Deniers.

Who Is Rick Rajter?

A particularly interesting 9-11 Denier is Rick Rajter. Rajter is a student member of the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial. He is cited in a new paper (PDF file, see Page 24) by Professor Stephen Jones, as being in the process of preparing a rebuttal of 9-11 Myths. He has also collaborated with "Scholar" full member Morgan Reynolds on Reynold's website.

Rick is a young man, recently graduated from MIT. He's apparently an athlete as well, as his bio here notes:

Born in raised in a small town in upstate NY, Rick came to MIT as an undergraduat in Materials Science and Engineering in 1999. Though rife with injuries during his undergraduate years, Rick's determination led him to such accomplishments as MVP of the indoor track team, leading season point scorer 3 times and Indoor NE Div III Pentathlon Champion.

(Update: A prior version of this post mentioned two other individuals on Rajter's MIT track team who obviously have nothing to do with his odious views, but were mentioned in his bio. I have removed their names from the post and wish those men nothing but the best.)

Obviously not much of a writer; there are a couple misspellings and some awkward phrasings in that brief paragraph.

But he's also a Holocaust Denier.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes a very good point, stating that

“Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail,”

Exactly. European countries are doing everything they can to quickly imprison and silence these revisionists. But why? Why not show them the facts and shut them up? Well, unfortunately the facts are not in their favor. So imprisonment becomes their ‘final’ solution :)

Of course, the media is having a hissy fit with his statements, and the ADL probably shat a brick upon hearing someone question the standard old “6 million died” rhetoric that we’ve been fed for years. Don’t worry, we’ll invade them soon and set the record straight.

Many other resources point out the contradictions and science of why the 6 million figure is preposterous. I guess even saying that makes me anti-semitic eh? But I’d rather tell the truth than worry about what people think about me.

Note in particular that Rajter links to Stormfront, a neo-Nazi site under the word "other" in that last parargraph. When his dubious citations are brought up in the comments, Rick responds (3rd comment):

Also, who cares if IHR is a “known holocaust denier” website. If I’m making the argument that 6 million didn’t die, wouldn’t they be a source I would want to cite? Particularly since they’ve put a lot of hours of research into it. Sure, they are biased. You know what, so are those that believe 6 million died. You know, when Auschwitz lowered their “official” death toll down from 4 million to 1.5 million, the “6 million total” remained. I don’t know about you, but basic math dictates that the number should at least go down to 4 million even if you believe the official numbers.

Cheers
-Rick

Comment by Rick Rajter — 2005-12-09 @ 4:18 pm

Say it loud, say it proud, Rick. The argument about Auschwitz is such a familiar trope of the Holocaust Deniers that it's even mentioned in the Wikipedia Entry on Auschwitz:

For many years, a memorial plaque placed at the camp by the Soviet authorities and the Polish communist government stated that 4 million people had been murdered at Auschwitz. This number was never taken seriously by Western historians, and was never used in any of the calculations of the death toll at Auschwitz (which have generally remained consistently around 1-1.5 million for the last sixty years) or for the total deaths in the Holocaust as a whole. After the collapse of the Communist government, the plaque was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers have attempted to use this change as propaganda....

Essentially what the Holocaust Deniers try to claim is that the 6 million estimate includes 4 million at Auschwitz, but we know know the total deaths there were more like 1.5 million, so that means we have to reduce the estimate of the total number of Jews killed in the Holocaust to 3.5 million (6 million less 2.5 million).

See also comment #17 on that thread by Rick:

Interestingly enough, the Red cross later apologized for not agreeing with the numbers of 6 million (there red cross tally, I believe, was on the order of 400,000) and those deaths were not due to gassings and/or bullets to the head… but rather rampant sickness from typhus, malaria, etc from the marshy lands in Poland.

I don’t deny that people don’t have tattoos on their arms and actually had to stay in the barracks… but there’s absolutely no proof of gas chambers being used to kill people. In fact, the one gas chamber they do show has a plaque stating that it was built after the war!

So he doesn't even buy the 1.0-1.5 million estimate. Just disgusting. We'll see if the Scholars, Morgan Reynolds and Professor Jones disassociate themselves from this young man.

Hat Tip: (On Rajter) to Kent1 at the JREF forums.