Mr. Gerdes drives another nail into the "Revisionist" coffin

On the "CODOH Revisionist Forum" (where my account has not yet been reactivated even though the one-month period of the ban decreed on 19.01.2010 has already expired; I have sent an e-mail to the moderator requesting reactivation), my old friend Greg Gerdes accomplished something extraordinary for his low intellect and character.

Yeager v. Neander 2: No Foot Left Unshot

Again, Dr. Neander may choose to reply to the deranged neo-Nazi lunatic Carolyn Yeager's new response to him at the antisemitic CODOH blog "Inconvenient History", though it is only understandable if he chooses not to give her more limelight. But again, here are my personal thoughts.

Yeager vs. Neander

Dr. Neander will probably have something to say about this reaction to his Zisblatt critique by the neo-Nazi scum Carolyn Yeager when he returns from vacation. I will only note that Yeager shows her idiotic paranoid mindset once again:

However, probably for the reason that he seems to have been assigned this project by some well-known Holocaust defenders (Kenneth Waltzer, Chairman of the Jewish Studies Dept. at the University of Michigan, who provided him with the Seigelstein documents, for one)...

Let me assure you, Yeager, that Dr. Neander doesn't lie when he writes "independent scholar". He is not assigned to anything by anyone, and particularly not concerning this essay, and I say this as someone who knows the story behind it.

And Yeager, of course, is not a very attentive reader, to put it mildly:

In the first paragraph, Neander writes that she “had her first name changed to Irene” when she obtained a visa in 1947 for emigration to New York. That can be understood either as ‘someone else changed her first name’ or ‘she herself had it changed’ - leaving the interpretation up to the reader. In fact, she claims in her book (but not in her testimony) that her name was Chana (by which she called herself up to that point), and this name was changed, much to her surprise, by an immigration official because he (or someone) thought the “American” name of Irene would be better for her. Taking such prerogatives is and was simply not done by immigration officials, and adds to the farcical quality of the book.

And here's what Dr. Neander writes later in the essay:

The first thing we learn from the documents, by the way, is that Mrs. Zisblatt was "Irene" already at Auschwitz, that she did not receive this first name just on immigration, as she relates: "I panicked. ‘This is not my name ... Irene ... I have never heard of that name,' I cried" (TFD:103). It is, however, possible that she had "Chana" as an additional, Jewish, first name.

So Dr. Neander recounts enough of this episode for the reader to understand that she supposedly received this "new" name against her will. And that first mention Yeager cites was the initial short recounting of her story (Neuengamme and all) which Dr. Neander later deconstructs.

She writes:

The reason Neander gives for telling the truth about dishonest holocaust survivors is not a regard for truth itself, but is because students who today are gullible enough to believe it, might, when they grow up, “reach for a scholarly book” and, discovering they were lied to, reject the entire Holocaust story.

But here's what Dr. Neander wrote:

It is not sufficient to defend the historical truth about the Holocaust only against distortions from the deniers' side. Distortions from the side of exaggerators, mythmakers, and self-aggrandizers must equally be rejected. A matter as serious as the Holocaust demands serious, honest, and accurate treatment. Not least with regard to the dignity and the memory of those who perished.

She is also not very bright and doesn't even get dry sarcasm (cf. the "feces ingestion" episode).

Carolyn Yeager is a dumb neo-Nazi liar, pure and simple.

The rest I leave to Dr. Neander.

Update: here's his response.