This is an open letter to the UK Collective. I've also posted it to uk-imc-features and to www.ucimc.org. It is likely that the discussion on the UK Indymedia website will be cut short, since many posts on the topic have been hidden recently. The discussion at UC-IMC will not be censored.

I've kept out of the Atzmon discussion on imc-uk-features, but something happened last night which is so disturbing, I wanted to bring it to the attention of the editorial list and see your reaction.

Ftp has started aping the arguments of Holocaust deniers.

In particular, he is arguing that there's nothing morally wrong with calling the gas chambers of Auschwitz "discredited."

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387175.html?c=all

He defends this position by quoting the Holocaust denier Greg Nimmo, the guy who called the gas chambers "discredited."

Nimmo quote in turns gives us a short litany of long-established Holocaust denier arguments. Nimmo claims that Dr. Piper, former director of the Auschwitz State Museum, has said there were no gas chambers. This is a flat out lie (see  http://www.hdot.org/learning/myth-fact/deathbooks//body/1028, last paragraph.)

Nimmo then plays the Auschwitz plaque gambit, a denier dodge that was debunked even *before* David Irving took it up (see #43 at  http://www.holocaust-history.org/denial/revisionism-qa.shtml).

These sorts of claims are the bread and butter of the Holocaust denial movement. These are their core opening gambits. They were refuted long before David Irving even took them up. But ftp sees nothing wrong with accepting it all at face value and letting the Holocaust denier Greg Nimmo exonerate himself.

Note specifically that I am not calling ftp an antisemite. I am simply calling attention to a baffling inability to see antisemitism in even forms as raw as Nimmo's Holocaust denial, counterpoised with his seemingly endless ability to explain such examples of antisemitism away.

Question one.

Does freethepeeps actually believe that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, or that this is in any way a factually defensible position, rather than Nazi wank?

Question two.

Is it really UK Indymedia policy that it's okay to call the gas chambers of Auschwitz "discredited"? Ftp thinks so. Is he right? Is UK Indymedia now fair game for Holocaust denial?

Question three.

Ultimately, the deeper question is this -- why is UK Indymedia allowing the perimeters and parameters of discussion about antisemitism to be laid down by a guy who can't even see the antisemitism in "The gas chambers of Auschwitz are discredited"? People are leaving your collective in disgust for this reason. Anti-racist readers are reacting with disgust for this reason.

What do you plan to do?

David Gehrig

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