December 2005
A Christmas Greeting
A Message from Mark Weber, Director, Institute for Historical Review
Dear Friend,
From all of us at the Institute for Historical Review, best wishes of this joyous season to you and your loved ones!
This is also a time when we remember friends who are deprived of freedom and contact with their families solely for expressing skepticism about the official version of a chapter of history that has become a semi-religious icon in western society – the Holocaust.
These prisoners of conscience are behind bars for having violated the disgraceful “Holocaust denial” laws in several European countries that criminalize any public challenge of Holocaust dogma.
For Ernst Zundel, a courageous friend of the IHR, this is his third Christmas behind bars. (For more than two years he was held in solitary confinement in Canada, without ever being convicted of any crime.) His trial in Germany began on November 8 with a dramatic clash between his stalwart attorneys and the presiding judge. If convicted, he faces many more years in prison.
David Irving, the British historian who has addressed a number of IHR meetings and conferences, was arrested in Austria three days later for a 16-year-old violation of that country’s “Holocaust denial” statute. He has now been formally charged, and if found guilty could face years behind bars.
And a few days later Germar Rudolf, a German citizen, was deported from Chicago to his homeland, where he likewise faces years of imprisonment for “denying the Holocaust.”
The list of those who have been fined, imprisoned, or forced into exile for “denying the Holocaust” is a long one, and includes Robert Faurisson and Roger Garaudy in France, Siegfried Verbeke in Belgium, Juergen Graf and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz in Switzerland, and Guenter Deckert, Hans Schmidt and Fredrick Toben in Germany.
As we report in our new IHR Update newsletter – which is posted on our website in pdf format – this past half year has been a busy and productive time for us.
We’ve kept up a vigorous schedule of media work, including many radio and television interviews that routinely reach hundreds of thousands of new listeners and viewers on regular and short wave stations in the US and overseas, as well as through the internet.
Viewership of our website – www.ihr.org – has remained strong. In September, for example, it received nearly two and a half million “hits,” or about 80,000 a day.
Each day articles and reviews posted on the IHR website are read by many more people than ever saw them in their original, printed form, such as in the IHR’s Journal of Historical Review.
Through the internet, IHR items are routinely distributed – not only by us, but by many others as well – to countless thousands around the world, or are posted on various websites, including in foreign languages. For example, the text of my recent address in New York, and our probing new report on the Wiesenthal Center, were quickly distributed to numerous e-mail lists, or were posted on websites around the world.
Twice this past year – in February and in July – we took our activism to the streets.
On July 29, for example, we rallied outside the offices of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles to focus attention on its record of lies in support of war, Zionist oppression and Jewish supremacism, and to protest the giveaway of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to this bastion of Jewish-Zionist power. Defying obscenity-shouting Zionist counter-demonstrators, our team displayed placards and handed out flyers – reprinted in the new IHR Update – headed “No To War, Bigotry and Oppression! No To The Wiesenthal Center!” (A detailed report, with photos, is posted on the IHR website at https://ihr.org/news/080205_SWC_Report.html)
Our “IHR News & Comment” e-mail service continues to grow, attracting ever more subscribers who appreciate our useful roundups of news, analysis and commentary. (To subscribe to this free service, drop a line to news@ihr.org)
As part of our regular work of promoting and shipping out educational materials, we routinely distribute large quantities of books, CDs, DVDs, leaflets, and other items — a record unmatched by any similar center or association.
To maintain the Institute’s effectiveness on the forefront of this great global struggle, support from friends like you is crucial.
To make a secure online credit card donation, click on our website’s “Support Us” page, and then click on the “DONATE” icon. Or to donate by check, write to us at the address below.
Remember: Your tax-deductible donation to the IHR is a cost-effective weapon in the global struggle for freedom and peace. Our impact is vastly out of proportion to our small staff and modest budget.
Sincerely,
Mark Weber
Director, Institute for Historical Review
Institute for Historical Review
P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659, USA