From: Christopher Bollyn
To: Prof. Steven E. Jones
Re: Allegations of anti-Semitism
Dear Professor Jones,
Thank you for allowing me to respond to these vicious allegations. Here is what this person charged in his email note to you:
Were you aware at the time of your interview by Christopher Bollyn that he himself is a Holocaust denier and that the publication he worked for is a neo-nazi newspaper?
No. I will BCC Christopher also to see if he agrees with your allegations -- since you have offered no substantiation.
Here I am accused of being a "Holocaust denier" and working for a "neo-nazi newspaper."
I am not an expert on the history of World War II, but I have visited several important sites of the war. For example I spent one month in Dresden in February-March 2004, where I lived at a small hotel on the grounds of Slaughterhouse 5.
Dresden is known for being the city that was incinerated on February 13-14, 1945. I have met with several eyewitnesses to this holocaust in which an estimated 600,000 people perished in a fireball that melted the streets and boiled the water in the river Elbe.
The Anglo-American fire-bombing of Dresden was truly a holocaust - a human sacrifice in fire of immense proportions.
My article about the Dresden holocaust with photographs of victims of the bombing is here:
http://www.erichufschmid.net/Kuklane...eyewitness.pdf
My "Letter from Dresden" of February 2004 is here:
http://www.bollyn.com/index/?id=10406
I am certainly not a holocaust denier. I have met the eyewitnesses from Dresden and seen the evidence with my own eyes. Today, with no small amount of regret, I am sorry to see that Kurt Vonnegut died at age 84. Vonnegut made a great impression on me with his book, Slaughterhouse 5 - The Children's Crusade, in which he described the fire-bombing of Dresden which he had survived, as a P.O.W., in the deep meat cellar of Slaughterhouse 5.
I had very much wanted to meet Vonnegut but have been unable to do so due to my recent setbacks.
I understand that the person calling me a "Holocaust denier" is probably not at all concerned with the fire-bombing of Dresden that took the lives of more than a half-million people in one terrible night. This person is probably claiming that I "deny" that Jewish prisoners were burned in large numbers in huge ovens in German concentration camps during WWII.
Having visited several of these former camps at Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald, all I can say is that I have not seen any evidence of these large ovens in which Jewish prisoners are said to have been burned. I did visit the crematoria at all three camps and saw that they comprised 6 single-body cremation ovens. It has been many years since I visited Dachau so my recollection of the crematoria there is not as clear as the other two camps.
I don't deny that many Jews were held as prisoners in these camps, and that many died in these camps, but they were certainly not the only group of people who suffered in these camps. At Auschwitz, for example, I know that many of the prisoners were Roman Catholics. The Nazi regime held many political prisoners of different nationalities in their concentration camps.
As I said, I have not seen at these three former camps any evidence of any large oven in which hundreds of people could be gassed or burned. Nor, have I seen any photographs or physical evidence of such an oven. I don't see how this could make me a denier of anything. One can only deny by refusing to acknowledge something that one has seen the evidence of. I have looked for the evidence of these huge gas chambers and crematoria and not found it in the places they are said to have existed. That does not make me a holocaust denier.
I certainly don't deny that millions of people perished in the war and that many Jews are among the dead. Nor do I deny that hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed in fire. I know that one holocaust in particular - the largest massacre in Europe - happened because I have seen the evidence with my own eyes - in Dresden.
As Kurt Vonnegut told the BBC, he had witnessed the largest massacre in European history in Dresden. The fire-bombing of Dresden is the only real holocaust in Europe that I have seen the evidence of. From Dresden I have heard the testimony of eyewitnesses and seen the photographs to prove that hundreds of thousands of innocent people were consumed entirely by fire in Dresden on Ash Wednesday 1945. I know that other German and Japanese cities suffered similar fire-bombings but Dresden is the only one I have personal knowledge of.
I was an independent contractor with the American Free Press when I interviewed you in 2006. This newspaper never published anything that I could see that could be described as "neo-Nazi," nor did it ever print anything that could be described as "anti-Semitic." It should be noted that I was attacked by police thugs shortly after I interviewed you and sacked by this newspaper after 6 years of working for it.
This paper withheld the money they had collected for my legal defense fund and refused to reimburse me for the money I had spent visiting you in Provo. People associated with AFP have subsequently carried on a relentless campaign to discredit me. The have accused me of spreading lies in my articles and "disloyalty." I certainly don't get much sympathy from AFP, wherever its sympathies or agenda lie.
I hope this helps clear up my position on this allegation. I am sorry that you have to put up with such an inquisition.
Best wishes,
Christopher Bollyn