Dachau, 1945

There's a fascinating site called Scrapbookpages which has pictures of the US 45th Infantry Division on its arrival at Dachau. One of the snaps shows soldiers finding large quantities of dead and dying prisoners at the camp, such as the one below.

 

"There's a big gate, and this German guy comes out of there. He must have been about six-four or six-five, and he's got beautiful blond hair. He's a handsome-looking bastard and he's got more Goddam Red Cross shields on and white flags....My first reaction is, "You son of a bitch, where in the hell were you five minutes ago before we got here, taking care of all these people? ....Well, everybody was very upset. Every guy in that company, including myself, was very upset over this thing, and then seeing this big, handsome, son of a bitch coming out with all this Red Cross shit on him.

Soon the advance scouts (of the 45th Division) were joined by other Allied soldiers and one of the German guards came forward to surrender with what he believed would be the usual military protocol. He emerged in full regalia, wearing all his decorations. He had only recently been billeted to Dachau from the Russian front. He saluted and barked "Heil Hitler". An American officer looked down and around at mounds of rotting corpses, at thousands of prisoners shrouded in their own filth. He hesitated only a moment, then spat in the Nazi's face, snapping "Schweinehund," before ordering him taken away. Moments later a shot rang out and the American officer was informed that there was no further need for protocol."

And then units of the 45th began to execute the SS Guards. Here's a picture taken as the SS Guards were being shot down. And the massacre continued until it was stopped by American officers.

Interested readers may want to visit Scrapbookpages to read the whole story which includes a detailed tour of the Gas Chambers and the entire camp. The entire point of the foregoing is to establish the fact that Jews were executed in Dachau and in such horrible numbers as to spark this spontaneous "war crime", if you want to call it that, occasioned by the sight.

Having established that Dachau at least existed, I still cannot sympathize with the Holocaust Denial Laws under which historian David Irving was convicted. The Times of London reports on his conviction and sentencing in Austria.

The sincerity of David Irving’s claim that he now believes millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis and that gas chambers did exist was challenged by his twin brother yesterday.

John Irving is so unidentical to the right-wing historian and Holocaust denier that he serves as chairman of Wiltshire Racial Equality Council.

Asked about his brother’s recantation before a Vienna court, John Irving told The Times: “If I said ‘E pur si muove!’ would it mean anything to you?” The quotation is often attributed to Galileo who was forced by the Inquisition in 1633 to retract his heretical belief that the Earth moves around the Sun.

The astronomer and philosopher was facing the death penalty but escaped with life imprisonment after disowning his findings. Under his breath, he is reputed to have murmured the now famous Italian phrase meaning: “Yet still it moves.”

These Holocaust Denial laws are the poorest defense of truth possible. They allow individuals like Irving, who have written bad history, to clothe themselves with the appearance of martyrdom. Galileo is supported by empirical evidence. Irving cannot even explain the photographs above. But laws establishing "official truth" create categories of the Unmentionable into which subjects like the Jihad, feminism, abortion and Global Warming -- all the assertions, half-truths and humbug of the world -- will presently seek refuge. The best defense of the truth of the holocaust is an uncompromising commitment to free speech. Unless free speech is protected then some of the very evils Hitler sought to foist upon the world will be reintroduced in the name of fighting his memory.