Revisionist ad spurs Holocaust talk by survivor

Following a number of Holocaust revisionist advertisements circulated in top college newspapers, Thomas Radel thought it was time to speak up. Radel began his lecture with a series of slides from the Auschwitz-Berkaneau internment camps that he personally survived. "What is distressing and horrifying is that the story did not finish in the spring of 1945," Radel said. "As George Orwell successfully predicted [in his book 1984] totalitarianist thinking not only changes what is to come, but it also changes the past." Radel added that anti-semitism and hatred flare up more vividly when times are rough. "When big economic problems occur, that causes fear," Radel said. "People do not know what is going to happen. They are waiting for someone to point to the scapegoat. Someone is saying 'Come. Just follow me, and I'll take the responsibility.' " Although Radel directed his initial comments to the California-based revisionist group sponsoring the Holocaust ads, his talk also touched on ideas ranging from the biological ramifications of the Nazi uprising to the development of social Darwinism. Radel specifically talked about the difficulties of survival from a scientific point of view. "The stress was so great that it was impossible to survive," Radel said. Radel went on to illustrate the fact that people died young by showing a slide of a man who physically looked 70 years old, but in actuality was only 40. "It is interesting, the difference between the psychological adaptation, and the physical adaptation," Radel said. "Some lost interest to live." Radel then explained the phenomena of camp societies formed by prisoners to increase "the probability of survival." "What was important was getting food, and dividing food," Radel said. He said people he knew for many years became emotionally distraught from starvation and would "do anything" to get food. Radel ended his lecture by discussing the development of ideology within the camp, which he called the strongest means of survival. "People who adhere to ideology were stronger to survive," Radel said. "[The existence of the underground movement] provided the belief that it was possible to resist the Germans." Although Radel initially focused on interpretations of the Holocaust, his final point pertained to human nature in general. "It is practically impossible to break human beings totally, even under the most difficult conditions, of which no one survives." In the question-and-answer period following the speech, audience members addressed issues raised by the revisionist advertisements.

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