Atrocity propaganda
[back] Holocaust revisionism

A great deal of careful research into this question, however, has now convinced me beyond any doubt that the allegation is not merely an exaggeration but an invention of post-war propaganda.
    Weber testified that this was not quite accurate as the essential extermination story began during the war in the fall of 1942. The first organization to make the charge seriously was the World Jewish Congress through its President, Rabbi Stephen Wise. In December of 1942, the Allied governments (the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and France), issued a Joint Declaration claiming that the Germans were exterminating the Jews. Privately, however, the American and British officials responsible for what was going on with the Jews in Europe urged their superiors not to issue the declaration on the grounds that there was no evidence that such an extermination programme was being carried out. This was set out in David Wyman's book The Abandonment of the Jews.
    Weber pointed out that it was clear from the official history of the World Jewish Congress, Unity in Dispersion, published in 1948, that the World Jewish Congress was very instrumental in pressuring the Allied governments to issue the declaration in December of 1942. It was now known that some of the statements made by Rabbi Stephen Wise about the alleged extermination were utterly baseless and false. Wise claimed that in 1942 the Germans were turning the Jews into soap bars. No serious historian believed that anymore. Wise also claimed in November, 1942 at a press conference in Washington, D.C. that the Germans had stopped gassing the Jews and were adopting the more economical method of having teams of doctors line up Jews and inject them with poison in syringes. No serious historian believed that anymore either. But the World Jewish Congress, throughout the war, was a major vehicle for putting out these kinds of stories. (23-5758, 5759) [Mark Weber] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988 

Episode 9: Reader's Digest Quicktime | WMV An article in February 1943 first brought the holocaust story to mainstream America. The article also mentioned six million--an uncanny number to throw out since the supposed fact hadn't happened yet. ONE THIRD OF THE HOLOCAUST