"Are YOU a Holocaust Denier?"

by Ingrid Rimland

The big project of the last few weeks has been a stepped-up "Lebensraum!" media campaign. The Government of Canada is mum on what grounds my politically incorrect trilogy was confiscated in the first place - but a legal challenge has been submitted, and the case will be fought with all the vigor due our cause in court.

At the beginning of the year, I had placed an ad in a trade media magazine to run in six consecutive issues. It was headlined "Beyond Saving Private Ryan: Do a Show on the Heroism of 'Little People' Caught up in WWII." This ad pulled only a moderate response at first. I did a few radio interviews, but nothing much came of it except some practice for me on how to keep my cool and speak intelligently yet passionately on censorship issues to live and sometimes very hostile audiences.

The agency that handled this ad campaign called me and asked me how it did. I told them that I was not happy with the looks of the ad - or the results. They suggested a change in the title at no extra charge to me. So we called it: "Has America Become Too Politically Correct? It's Worse Than You Think!"

What a difference this change of title made!

Before we modified the ad, I logged one to two calls every week. After the change, the calls came rolling in. Now I have done numerous radio shows - from Boston, from Sioux Falls, from Wyoming and Illinois. Today alone I received three requests for interviews! Right now I have shows pending from Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City, and Rehoboth Beach. This coming week, I am scheduled for two more, and there are several more "tentatives" pending where my press kit has been requested for consideration.

I would say that these shows are "fifty-fifty" in terms of acceptance of what I say. The Midwest shows are friendly and courteous. The closer you come to both coasts, the more hostility you feel from both host and audience.

I will describe to you the most dramatic radio talk show so far, which I did just a few days ago out of the Hollywood-Los Angeles area.

I had received a friendly call from a fellow called Fred who said there had been a cancellation on an important syndicated show - and would I be available for a one-hour talk show with a host called Ira? Most shows are done via long distance out of my home, but this producer wanted me in the studio because it was one of the best stations in America. When I told a friend and fellow activist about this show, he was a bit apprehensive, because the program was at 10 p.m. at night, and it would mean a trip of some two hours, both ways, through heavy LA traffic. Besides, there is always a security factor - one only needs to remember what happened to Dr. Faurisson in France to wonder what crazies might do if they hear me on a specific radio station for an entire hour and know out of which door I will exit.

So I called two of my fellow activists, Jonnie and Tom, who live in the area and know it well, and who agreed to accompany me. Jonnie came fortified with an umbrella! Others made sure that the homefront was protected. For extra security reasons, I took a motel room for the night and parked my car elsewhere - and the three of us got going in a different car.

The studio, it turned out, was an important CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. It is located in a magnificent, elegant high-rise building, with heavy security and all the trappings of very big money. What shocked me in the waiting room was a larger-than-life promotional display of Howard Stern, the Jewish porn king of American talk radio. His "likeness" in a cut-out display stood naked in front of what looked like New York, with a suggestive high rise tower serving as his fig leaf - and there was such a lifelike, demonic look to Howard Stern, the way this evil, filthy man hovered over "civilization", it is hard to describe what it conveys, other than to say the effect is absolutely satanic!

"Never has a man done so much with so little," said the inscription.

So there we sat, four feet from Howard Stern, and waited for a man named Ira. Soon I was positioned in front of the microphone, and Ira came in - a rotund, yawning, jovial man in his mid-fifties - with the looks of a stereotypical prosperous, self-assured Jew. He told me that he had not read my promotional material and had no idea where the talk would take us, but that he trusted me, since I was experienced in doing radio shows, and we would just happily wing it.

This we did, for about 45 minutes, during which I talked about my dramatic life and past experiences, while he listened attentively and with a friendly and benevolent smile on his face. We went swimmingly past several cliffs. I told of my unusual background of Russian Germans welcoming the Hitler Army in 1941 - as heroes and not tormentors. He smiled at that and said he knew - he had read history. I told him that I was well into my thirties until it dawned on me that not everybody in the world respected Hitler, the way I had been raised in my isolated South American German colony. He smiled at that as well and thought that it was funny. It became a bit iffy once we started talking about the literal meaning of "Lebensraum" - he wanted me to say it meant rapacious behavior of the Wehrmacht, but I corrected him and said that it meant "Living Space" - and that small danger spot passed, too.

But then I mentioned Ernst Zündel, the fabled Canadian-German activist who has locked horns with the Holocaust Lobby for about twenty years - and a change came over the man. I don't think I have ever in my life seen such a sudden change from friendly social chitchat to ice-cold hate!

He said: "I know him." He said: "Are you a Holocaust Denier?"

I thought that he was going to punch me out; he looked that angry and upset. I got a few sentences in, explaining what Revisionists believe and don't believe. I knew that I had very little time to say what I had come to say, and I leaned into the microphone and said that Revisionist challenged three tenets of the traditional Holocaust Lobby: The six million number, the claim that there had ever been a Führer order for genocide, and the tale of the gassings.

I am very proud of myself that I said in a very clear, controlled voice. "The gassings. Did. Not. Happen!"

Ira shouted, and I write this from memory here:

"I will not listen to this. I don't have to listen to this! This is offensive! This is revolting! I cannot believe that a nice lady like you would go for something like that!" He said more - quite a bit more, and then he slammed on the buttons, and the show went on a commercial break.

I must confess I was so taken aback by this sudden verbal attack I was not that quick on my feet. I now feel I ought to have said more and should have taken hold of the direction of the show, but I was clearly scared. While I was trying to compose myself, Tom, one of my companions who was with me in the studio, lit into Ira verbally and gave him a piece of his mind. I tried to motion to him to calm him down, because I could see how aggravated Ira was already, but there was no way to stop the two going at each other with verbal claws exposed. I knew then that the show was over. I made a small suggestion and asked Ira if we could maybe keep this civil and talk about my books rather than the Holocaust, but there was just no way. He terminated the interview in a huff, did not allow a single caller to come on the air so I could answer questions, and the three Revisionist Musketeers got up and left the studio.

Barely were we out of the door when one of the studio people came running after us, highly excited and absolutely furious that he didn't get to hear the rest of the story! He said ". . . this is entirely off the record!" and then he unloaded on us - how unfair and biased the show had been, as others in the past had been, how he agreed with our point of view, how he had had it with the liberal media etc. etc. etc. We stood in the hall for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and the fellow was so excited he practically shouted - I actually felt he was endangering his job!

Now I am one experience richer. It just goes to show, yet one more time, how controlled the media are, even in America - supposedly "the land of the free." However, on balance, I think I did okay. This was a live show, lasting almost an hour, broadcast coast to coast in dozens of cities, and Ira destroyed himself right on the air. Here I was, wanting to do a show on censorship - and America got treated to a prime example of exactly how censorship works!

=====