Cartoons & Holocaust Deniers

I don’t find myself agreeing with the prime minister of Iran about many things, but about one thing, I believe, he is right. It is inconsistent to claim, in the name of freedom of expression, that a Danish newspaper has the right to publish any cartoon of Muhammad that it wants and at the same time to have laws, as do at least seven Western countries, outlawing denial of the Holocaust.

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Jan Sehn

If one reads and examines the book written by Jan Sehn, the Judge who presided over the Auschwitz trials in Poland, one is immediately compelled to acknowledge the book’s numerous, woeful deficiencies. If researchers are expecting to find any startling revelations from the Auschwitz trials conducted in Poland immediately after the war or entertaining hopes to discover any other convincing evidence as to the existence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, they should think again. Nary one word from the actual trials of Hoess, Grabner, Liebehenschel, et al is cited. For rather predictable reasons, Sehn prefers to rely not on the records of the trials over which he personally presided, or on the affidavits or testimony of the accused and the accusers, or any additional supporting documentation, opting instead to quote liberally from Hoess’ memoirs. There is an underlying reason for this, of course. Testimonies and statements can be examined and compared for their truthfulness, coherence, and consistencies. They can also be examined for their untruthfulness, incoherence, and inconsistencies. Ergo Sehn deliberately avoids any mention of embarrassing testimony or statements which might lend themselves to an in-depth scrutiny by impartial researchers. Continue reading