The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american//skeptic.magazine/skeptic.5


Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.culture.jewish,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Proving the Holocaust: Follow the Money (Part 5 of 15)
Summary: Dr. Michael Shermer's article on Holocaust revisionism,
         "Proving the Holocaust: The Refutation of Revisionism & the 
         Restoration of History," _Skeptic_, Vol. 2, No. 4, Altadena, 
         California, June, 1994. Published by the Skeptics Society, 
         2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001, (818) 794-3119.
Reply-To: poster
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project
Keywords: 
Lines: 120

[Followups directed to alt.revisionism]

Part 5: Follow the Money

Since the 1984 fire-bombing that destroyed the IHR office, they are
understandably cautious about revealing their location to outsiders.
Situated in an industrial area, the office has no sign on the building,
which is entered through a glass door with one-way mirrored coating. The
door is dead-bolted at all times so one must be identified and admitted
by the secretary working in a small office in front. There are several
offices for the various staff members, and considerable shelf space for
their voluminous library. Not surprisingly, World War II and the
Holocaust is the major focus of their resources. In addition, a
warehouse filled with back issues of the journal, pamphlets and
promotional materials, books and video tapes, is part of their catalogue
business which, they claim, in addition to subscriptions, accounts for
about 80% of their revenue. The other 20% comes from tax-free donations
(they are a non-profit organization). Whatever funds they were receiving
through Willis Carto have now dried up with the recent falling out and
subsequent lawsuits with the former founder of the IHR.

   In February, 1994, Director Tom Marcellus did a mass mailing to their
members with "AN URGENT APPEAL FROM IHR" because they had "been forced
to confront a threat to the editorial and financial integrity . . . that
in the past several months has drained, and continues to drain,
literally tens of thousands of dollars from our operations." Without the
readers' help the "IHR may not survive." Carto is then accused of
becoming "increasingly erratic" both in personal matters and in
business, and that he "involved the corporation in three costly
copyright violations." Most interestingly, and in keeping with the
movement's attempt to disassociate themselves from earlier anti-Semitic
connections and present themselves as objective historical scholars,
they accuse Carto of changing "the direction of IHR and its journal from
serious, non-partisan revisionist scholarship, reporting, and commentary
to one of ranting, racialist-populist pamphleteering." (This shift is
not unlike that made by the Institute for Creation Research, in
distancing themselves from the more radical fundamentalists who were
preventing them from making inroads into the mainstream.)

   As a result of the ensuing battle between Carto and the IHR, the
corporation's board of directors voted to sever the ties between the
two. Carto apparently did not take this lying down. According to the
IHR, among the many things Carto has done to them (including having
"stormed IHR's offices with hired goons"), he "puts out the fantastic
lie that the Zionist ADL has been running IHR since last September." The
letter concludes with a dramatic promise by Bradley Smith that if the
IHR really is being run by the ADL, "I'll fly to Washington, DC, call a
press conference, and eat my shorts on the front steps of the Liberty
Lobby."

   Before this break the IHR leaned heavily on the "Edison money," a
total of about $15 million willed by Thomas Edison's granddaughter, Jean
Farrel Edison. According to Irving (1994), about $10 million of that
money was apparently lost by Carto in "in lawsuits by other members of
the family in Switzerland," and the remaining $5 million was made
available to Carto's Legion for the Survival of Freedom. "From that
point on it vanishes into uncertainty. Certain sums of money have turned
up. A lot of it is in a Swiss bank at present." The story is complex but
will be sorted out through the courts. David Cole predicts that "the IHR
is going to have to depend a lot more on journal and book sales." The
job of rescuing the Institute falls on the shoulders of Marcellus, says
Cole, and following the money leads us to their right-wing, anti-Semitic
backers (1994):

      What Marcellus realizes is that in order to keep the IHR in the
      black they have had to cater to the far right.  I think if you
      were to look at their book sales you would see that some of the
      more complex, really solid historiographical works probably
      don't sell as well as Henry Ford's International Jew or the
      Protocols of Zion, or some of the other things they sell.  If
      they had to rely on the sales of Holocaust revisionist works
      alone they'd be screwed.  They have to cater to the money.
      There are a lot of elderly people with money saved or with
      social security checks, who want to spend the last years of
      their life fighting the Jews.  Bradley can get checks for
      $5,000, $7,000, $3,000.  These people are very, very wealthy,
      and completely anonymous.  There is a lot of money to be made by
      getting a really good ideological mailing list and the IHR has
      one that caters mainly to people of the far right.

   At the time of this writing (June, 1994) it remains to be seen
whether this split with Carto will take down the IHR. They won a
judgment against Carto on December 31, 1993, where Judge Robert J. Polis
ruled that Carto had exercised control beyond his legal authority. They
are now suing Carto for damages caused by his raid on the IHR offices
that destroyed equipment and ended in fisticuffs; as well as other
monies which, Weber claims, went "to Liberty Lobby and other Carto
controlled enterprises. Probably the money has been frittered away by
Carto but we are trying to track this down" (1994b). Nevertheless, they
are still planning their 1994 "Twelfth International Revisionist
Conference" in Los Angeles, location to be announced only to paying
attendees (at a pricey $355.00). The JHR continues to be published.
Promotional literature and their book/video catalogue are regularly
mailed out. Even if the IHR does not survive the break with Carto, we
must remember that the revisionist movement is not a homogenous group
held together through this organization. Zuendel, for example, is
"presently negotiating a deal with an American satellite company who
promised me that they can get a signal over Europe that can be picked up
on satellite dishes." His goal is to move revisionism into the
mainstream in Europe and America, where "I think in another 15 years
revisionism will be discussed over pretzels and beer" (1994).

[Continued in Part 6]

                          Work Cited

   Shermer, Michael. "Proving the Holocaust: The Refutation of
      Revisionism & the Restoration of History," _Skeptic_, Vol. 2,
      No. 4, Altadena, California, June, 1994. Published by the
      Skeptics Society, 2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001,
      (818) 794-3119.

_Skeptic_ magazine:
http://www.skeptic.com

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.