Jürgen Graf Welcomed in Iran
Swiss Revisionist Forced into Exile for
"Thought Crime"
A prominent Swiss revisionist author who fled his homeland
rather than serve a 15-month prison sentence for "Holocaust
denial" has been welcomed in Iran.
Rather than begin serving the politically-motivated prison
term that was to commence in October, Jürgen Graf is staying in
Tehran at the invitation of a group of Iranian scholars and
university professors who are sympathetic to Holocaust
revisionism. (Contrary to some reports, he has not been given
political asylum in Iran, nor has he requested it.) He has
written an 80-page overview of the history and impact of
Holocaust revisionism that is being translated into Persian and
Arabic for distribution to scholars, journalists and religious
and political leaders. Graf will also be giving lectures at
Iranian universities. He learning Persian (Farsi) in an
intensive study course.
Graf arrived in Tehran on November 17, 2000, concluding a
journey that had taken him to Poland, Russia, Ukraine and
Turkey. He is impressed with the hospitality and helpfulness of
his hosts, as well as with the orderliness, cleanliness and
sense of security in the Iranian capital.
At the conclusion of his trial in July 1998, a court in the
Swiss town of Baden sentenced Graf to 15 months imprisonment and
imposed a heavy fine because of his writings. (See "Swiss Court
Punishes Two Revisionists," July-August 1998 Journal.)
Graf does not intend to return to Switzerland until normal
rights of free speech and free intellectual inquiry are
restored. However, he has not yet decided where he will settle
and make a new home.
Jürgen Graf, born in 1951, is an educator, researcher and
author of several books, including "Holocaust on the Test
Stand," which has appeared in more than half a dozen languages.
In March 1993, following publication of the 112-page German
edition, he was summarily dismissed from his post as a secondary
school teacher of Latin and French. (See "Swiss Teacher
Suspended for Holocaust Book," Sept.-Oct. 1993 Journal.)
In December 1994 the French-language edition, L'Holocauste au
scanner, was banned in France by order of the country's Interior
Ministry. Some 200,000 copies of an expanded edition of this
work have been published and distributed in Russia under the
title "The Myth of the Holocaust." (See "A Major Revisionist
Breakthrough in Russia," July-August 1997 Journal.)
In recent years Graf has examined the sites of numerous
wartime German camps, and has carried out historical research at
archives in Poland, Russia, and other countries. (See, for
example, "Important Documents Found in Moscow Archives,"
Nov.-Dec. 1995 Journal.) During the coming months he
intends to bring out, in collaboration with Carlo Mattogno and
Richard Krege, a book about Treblinka, the wartime German camp
in Poland where, it is widely alleged, more than 750,000 Jews
were killed between July 1942 and April 1943.
Since 1997 Graf has been a member of this Journal's
Editorial Advisory Committee. His addresses at the Twelfth and
13th IHR Conferences appeared in the Nov.-Dec. 1995 and
July-August 2000 Journal issues.
In several countries, including Germany, France, Israel,
Austria and Switzerland, it is a crime publicly to dispute
standard "Holocaust" claims that six million Jews were
systematically killed during World War II, most of them in gas
chambers. Numerous writers and publishers have been fined or
imprisoned for "Holocaust denial." These one-sided "thought
crime" laws are the result of a well-organized campaign by the
World Jewish Congress and other powerful Jewish organizations.
Growing Support
Awareness of the importance of the Holocaust story as a key
propaganda tool of Israeli-Zionist interests is growing
throughout the world, especially in Muslim countries. This was
manifest, for example, during the 1998 trial in Paris of the
prominent French scholar Roger Garaudy, who was fined $40,000
for his book The Founding Myths of Modern Israel, which presents
compelling evidence refuting the orthodox Holocaust story and
other historical legends. (An attractive American edition is
published by the IHR.)
Religious and political leaders, scholars and journalists in
Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and other countries expressed support for
Garaudy and Holocaust revisionism. (See T. O'Keefe, "Origin and
Enduring Impact of the 'Garaudy Affair'," July-August 1999
Journal, pp. 31-35.) A professor at Cairo University, Dr. Amina
Rashid, for example, declared: "Zionist propaganda, well
entrenched in France, is exploiting the guilt complex among the
French for the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis... The
Zionist lobby keeps concentrating on the 'Six Million victims'
in spite of the corrections to this figure." In Iran, 600
journalists and 160 members of parliament signed petitions
backing Garaudy, and during a visit to the country, he was
received by the nation's chief of state, Ayatollah Khamenei, who
congratulated the French scholar.
Iran's official radio voice to the world, IRIB, has in recent
years expressed support for Holocaust revisionism by
broadcasting sympathetic interviews with leading revisionist
scholars and activists. Several interviews with IHR Director
Mark Weber have been aired on the English-language service, and
similar interviews have been broadcast with Ernst Zündel in
German and with Ahmed Rami in Arabic. IRIB short-wave radio
reaches millions in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
An editorial, "Myth of the Holocaust," in the
English-language Iranian paper Kayhan International, Dec. 6,
1999, commented sympathetically on Holocaust revisionism, and
criticized German government persecution of Dr. Fredrick Töben
and others who dispute Holocaust claims. The paper called Töben
an "Australian historian of German origin who is known for his
authoritative research on the myth of the Holocaust ... He was
jailed and he was fined for having exposed the fabrications of
the gas chambers where, Zionist propaganda says, six million
Jews perished ..." The paper referred to the "preposterous
figure of six million," and praised revisionist scholars for
their "courageous research and highlighting of facts of the
Second World War."
On May 1, 2000, the Iranian embassy in Vienna granted refuge
to an Austrian engineer, Wolfgang Fröhlich, who had been hounded
for expressing dissident views on history. At Graf's 1998 trial,
Fröhlich had testified that, for technical reasons, mass
gassings with Zyklon could not have been carried out in the
German wartime camps as alleged. In his request for asylum, he
reported that he had been offered $5 million to repudiate his
expert testimony in the Graf trial, and instead state that mass
killings with Zyklon could somehow have happened as claimed.
Since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79, which overthrew the
repressive and pro-Zionist regime of Shah Pahlavi, the Islamic
republic has steadfastly opposed Zionist oppression and
aggression. United States policy toward Iran has accordingly
been hostile, and includes a ban on trade and investment. This
belligerent policy, which reflects America's subservience to
Zionist interests, is hypocritical. By any objective standard,
Iran is today a much more "democratic" state than many with
which the US has cordial relations, including Israel, China,
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. US efforts to isolate the nation of
some 65 million people have failed. Reflecting its good
relations with the rest of the world (apart from the US and
Israel), Iran's popular President, Mohammed Khatami, has in
recent years made successful state visits to Italy, France,
Germany and Britain.
The warm welcome being given to Jürgen Graf in Iran is not
only a dramatic expression of support for intellectual freedom
and human rights, it further refutes the often-made claim that
Holocaust revisionism has no significant public or scholarly
support.
Vérité et Justice
The Beirut conference is being organized by Association
Vérité et Justice ("Truth and Justice"), a Swiss
organization founded in 1998 that works to restore freedom of
opinion and research in Switzerland. Public expression of doubt
about "the Holocaust" is a crime in Switzerland, as it is
Germany, France, Israel and some other countries.
Jürgen Graf, who is currently visiting Iran, serves as
director (président) of Vérité et Justice.
Philippe Brennenstuhl serves as vice president, and René-Louis
Berclaz as general secretary. As many as 200 persons have
attended its meetings, only one of which has been public because
of the danger of police intervention. Police have twice raided
the organization's office, seizing a number of booklets.
Vérité et Justice has published three booklets, each
in German and French: "Inquisition in Action: Two Political
Trials in Switzerland," "The Bergier Report: Anatomy of a
Historical Fraud," and "The Amaudruz Trial: A Legal Farce."
Charging that the two latter booklets violate the country's
"Anti-Racism Law," Swiss authorities have begun legal
proceedings against Vérité et Justice.
The postal address of Vérité et Justice is: Case
postale 355, CH-1618 Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland.
Source:
Institute for Historical Review
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