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Institute for Historical Review

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The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), founded in 1978, is a leading Holocaust denial organization. [1] It describes itself as a "public interest educational, research and publishing center dedicated to promoting greater public awareness of history."

History

The IHR was originally founded by Dave McCalden (also known as Lewis Brandon), a former member of the extreme right-wing National Front, and Willis Carto, the head of the now-defunct Liberty Lobby, who eventually lost control of the IHR in an internal power struggle. Liberty Lobby was an anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi organization best known for publishing The SPOTLIGHT, now reorganized as the American Free Press. The current head of the IHR is Mark Weber.

Beginning in 1979, IHR publicly offered a reward of $50,000 for verifiable "proof that gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings existed at or in Auschwitz." This money (and an additional $40,000) was eventually paid in 1985 to Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein, who sued the IHR for breach of contract for initially ignoring his evidence (a signed testimony of his experiences in Auschwitz). As a result of Mermelstein's case, a U.S. Superior Court in California declared the Holocaust an indisputable legal fact.

Holocaust denial

Critics such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies have accused the Institute of anti-Semitism and having links to neo-Nazi organizations, and assert that its primary focus is denying the commonly-understood facts of the Nazi genocide of Jews and others. [2] [3][4]

Criticism of the organization is not limited to groups focusing on the Holocaust. Britain's Channel 4 describes the IHR as a "pseudo-academic body based in the United States which is dedicated to denying that the Holocaust happened." [5] While the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the IHR a "blatantly anti-Semitic assortment of pseudo-scholars" (p. J-1, 29 May 2005). The Daily Star, the leading English language paper in Lebanon, in response to a planned IHR meeting in the country called the IHR "loathsome pseudo-historians" and an "international hate group," and reported "as one former PLO official has put it, 'with friends like that, we don't need enemies'." (Lebanon Daily Star, 24 March 2001)

IHR has insisted that they do not deny the Holocaust, claiming that, "The Institute does not 'deny the Holocaust.' Every responsible scholar of twentieth century history acknowledges the great catastrophe that befell European Jewry during World War II. All the same, the IHR has over the years published detailed books and numerous probing essays that call into question aspects of the orthodox Holocaust extermination story, and highlight specific Holocaust exaggerations and falsehoods." [6]

Commentators have argued, however, that the avowals by the IHR that they do not deny the Holocaust are misleading. For example, Paul Raber wrote in the San Francisco Express that:

The question [of whether the IHR denies the Holocaust] appears to turn on IHR's Humpty-Dumpty word game with the word Holocaust. According to Mark Weber, associate editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review [now Director of the IHR], "If by the 'Holocaust' you mean the political persecution of Jews, some scattered killings, if you mean a cruel thing that happened, no one denies that. But if one says that the 'Holocaust' means the systematic extermination of six to eight millions Jews in concentration camps, that's what we think there's not evidence for." That is, IHR doesn't deny that the Holocaust happened; they just deny that the word "Holocaust" means what people customarily use it for.

Criticism of methods

The IHR is not regarded as conducting historical research by mainstream historians and academics, but rather as conducting pseudo-science aimed at proving that the Holocaust did not happen. The editorial board of one of the leading historical journals, the Journal of American History, wrote, "We all abhor, on both moral and scholarly grounds, the substantive arguments of the Institute for Historical Review. We reject their claims to be taken seriously as historians." (Journal of American History, Vol 80, No. 3, p1213).

And the Independent wrote of an IHR meeting: "The Institute for Historical Review insists in all its publicity material that they are 'objective historians' who are only interested in discovering 'the truth about the Holocaust and other controversial historical events'. That claim seems implausible within ten minutes of the conference starting. The audience reacts with whoops to waves of anti-semitic claims and slander." (13 April 2003, page 18)

The conspiracy theory satire site The Mad Revisionist, taking at face value the IHR's claims of having no agenda other than the search for historical truth through free discussion, attempted to enlist their aid in critically examining the Irish Potato Famine in the same manner as the IHR examines the Holocaust. "While at first supporting The Mad Revisionist's right to freedom of opinion ... Mr. O'Keefe upon viewing the nature of The Mad Revisionist's conclusions, suddenly becomes hostile, calling The Mad Revisionist crazy and implying - without even having received the full submission - that The Mad Revisionist's theories are not even worthy of scholarly debate!"[7]. Noting the similarity between the theory and methodology of "Holocaust revisionism" and "Irish Potato Famine revisionism", The Mad Revisionist continues the parallel by suggesting that Mr. O'Keefe's loyalty to his heritage is blinding him to even considering "the possibility that his ancestors were liars, and that those who share his ethnic background are engaged in a sinister and elaborate plot against the interests of America and the world."

In 2001, Eric Owens, a former employee, revealed that Mark Weber and Greg Raven from the IHR's staff had been planning to sell their mailing lists to the Anti-Defamation League.

Journal of Historical Review

The IHR publishes the non-peer reviewed Journal of Historical Review, which its critics (including the ADL, the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies, and other scholars, such as Robert Hanyok, a National Security Agency historian [8]), accuse of being pseudo-scientific. When Noam Chomsky defended an author who wrote articles for the journal (Dr. Robert Faurisson), it led to great controversy, though Chomsky insisted he was defending Faurisson's right to free speech rather than any specific claims made in his articles.

The journal, History Teacher, wrote of the Journal of Historical Review that the "magazine is shockingly racist and anti-Semitic: articles on 'America's Failed Racial Policy' and anti-Israel pieces accompany those about gas chambers... They clearly have no business claiming to be a continuation of the revisionist tradition, and should be referred to as 'Holocaust Deniers'." (History Teacher, Vol 28, No.4, p 526)

The journal has halted publication since 2002 however, due to "lack of staff and funding", according to the organization's website.

In an article published in Hitlist Magazine in 2002, author Kevin Coogan wrote that there have recently been attempts to forge ties between American and European Holocaust-denial groups such as the IHR and radical Middle Eastern extremists. According to Coogan, Ahmad Rami, a former Moroccan military officer who founded Radio Islam to disseminate anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial, and pro-Nazi propaganda, teamed up with the IHR to organize conference in a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut, Lebanon. [9]

In April, 2004, following a complaint by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, The Nation magazine refused to accept advertising from the IHR, stating "[T]here is a strong presumption against censoring any advertisement, especially if we disagree with its politics. This case, however, is different. Their arguments are 'patently fraudulent.'" [10]

The IHR has featured in its conferences and publications figures such as David Irving, Robert Faurisson, Ernst Zündel, Fred Leuchter, Arthur Butz, Joseph Sobran, Bradley Smith, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf and Radio Islam founder Ahmed Rami.

References

  1. ^ The description "the world's leading Holocaust denial organisation" is used by Google and by CNN (March 5, 2002). Similar descriptions are used by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the National Review (April 7, 2003), and Michael Shermer, Alex Grobman, Denying History, University of California Press, 2002.

See also

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