'DP' turns down ad denying Holocaust

The prepaid ad, which was sent to the DP by a California-based revisionist history group called the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, has been sent to several college newspapers in recent weeks. The ad, which reads as an essay on "The Holocaust Controversy: The Case for Open Debate," is a full-page of text written by Bradley Smith, the director of the organization. "Revisionists deny that the German State had a policy to exterminate the Jewish people (or anyone else) by putting them to death in gas chambers or by killing them through abuse and neglect," the ad reads. The ad also blames the current Political Correctness movement for covering up alternative historical beliefs. The ads states that "Thought Police" are stifling free speech on campus. The ad was sent to newspapers at "the better schools" to spark open debate about the history of the Holocaust, Smith said last night. Historical evidence is not available which proves that the Holocaust happened the way most historians say it did, Smith said. "It cannot be shown with documents that there was a plan [to execute Jews]," Smith said. "In the documents there was no plan there, no executions, no gas chambers, no victim." Smith said he is considering legal action against the newspapers which did not run his ad. He declined to name those papers, though he said it has been published at newspapers at Northwestern University, University of Michigan and Duke University. "It is not good enough for a university newspaper, particularly one financed in any way at all by the government, to deny access to someone for the purpose of debating a historical issue," Smith said. At a number of the schools where the ad was printed, including Michigan, vigilant and angry protests have erupted. The DP Executive Board voted not to run the ad after hours of both formal and informal debate. The two dissenting votes came from Managing Editor Peter Spiegel and Business Manager Mike Gaviser. Gaviser said that he consulted with campus religious leaders and other religious leaders in the Jewish community before making his decision. The ad could serve to raise the awareness of the community and make people know that these opinions exist and they must be dealt with, Gaviser said. "It is best to show the Jewish community and the community at large that these sort of dangerous people exist," Gaviser said. "It is important to not just sweep these people under the rug." "If you don't run the ad, the impact of their power is not felt," Gaviser added. Spiegel said he felt even offensive viewpoints should be heard and that the Executive Board's actions only lend fuel to the fire. "As a newspaper, one of our fundimental obligations is to make sure every viewpoint, even those that are offensive, are heard," Spiegel said. "Covering up their speech only lends credence to their argument. Now the group can legitamtely point to our paper and say, 'Look. There is an organization run by Jews that censored our views,' " The newspaper board has debated several similar issues before, including ads which have been run for several years which discuss a conflict between Armenians and Turks. Gaviser said that these ads -- which debate the question of an Armenian genocide 75 years ago -- were considered carefully and both sides were asked for credible sources of evidence which prove their point of view. He added that he feels the board should reconsider the ads each year. Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin praised the board for making what he called a "courageous" decision. If the ad had run, Brochin predicted that there would have been "a great deal of anger and frustration." He said that at Michigan there was a large protest following publication of the ad. Executive Editor Helen Jung, who voted against running the ad, said last night that the newspaper reserves the right to publish or reject any ad. "I did not feel that this was an issue of free speech," Jung said. "Rather this was an issue of deciding what was in the best interests of the newspaper. Running an ad with factual errors that fostered hate was not." Editorial Page Editor Steve Ochs, who is not a member of the Executive Board, threatened to quit the staff if the ad ran, and said he made the decision partly for religious reasons. "As a Jew, I will not allow myself to be a pallbearer at my own funeral," Ochs wrote in a letter to staff members.

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