Holocaust-denying bishop

I must respond to Bishop Richard Williamson’s claim that not one Jew died in gas chambers (1/28, A-8, “The defense doesn’t rest; Vatican stresses pontiff’s record of denouncing the Holocaust”). He also claims there were no gas chambers. Oh, how I wish he was right.

I am the sole survivor of my immediate family. If his statement were correct, my mother, age 42, my sister, age 17, and my brother, age 10, would have died of natural causes in old age. Instead, their lives were smothered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Belzec. After suffering the horror of Stutthof concentration camp, my father was also murdered.

Denying the Holocaust was ruled to be a sin by Pope John Paul II. Bishop Williamson was excommunicated from the church by Pope John Paul II, yet now the Vatican is bringing him back into the fold. This is an outrage!

I’m 82 years old. I have difficulty accepting the fact that educated people would try to rewrite history in my lifetime. Can’t these revisionists at least wait until we survivors are dead to rewrite history?

Jack Mandelbaum
Overland Park

Comments

[solomon]

Engineer,

I thought I answered it, sorry. Once created what are we to do with the situation. Under the guidelines of holding them until the conflict is over, well that is a life sentence. You and I both know it, as this miltary action has no end in sight.

[Pub 17]

Oh, REALLY, Engineer? On what do you base that amazing statement, their marvelous achievement in finding WMD's in Iraq, or their nailing to the cross one six-five bad boy wearing a turban with bad kidneys?

[TinaMcG]

We know there were terrorists arrested, but how un-American is it to view the innocents as expendable, for the greater good. We're supposed to be better than that, shining city on a hill and all that...remember?

[Engineer]

Pub 17
On the other hand there were those taken under arms. There also were terrorists who were arrested. How many of the "innocent" there may have been I don't know and neither do you. However, the people in military intelligence are not stupid and not that easy to deceive completely.

[Pub 17]

Silly woman. You don't unnerstand people in that part of the world, they have short memories and are prone to forgive and forget...

[TinaMcG]

That's what I'm afraid of, Pub -- the innocents who got caught up in the dragnet or turned in by people with axes to grind. I worry about the ones we can't hold but who have probably been turned into terrorists in captivity.

[Pub 17]

We took children and we took people who were turned in by their personal enemies for cash rewards who had nothing to do with combat, battlefields, or terrorism. And we sequestered them for years without judicial proceedings and without rights. Now, Engineer, they're going to go home and become happy shopkeepers, bragging about how well they were treated by the nice Americans.

Good one, George.

[Engineer]

solomon
Re the off thread matter:
My question wasn't about closing Gitmo, it was what we do with the man taken on a battle field, under arms and not in uniform. The fight is still going on, we let him go and he's back in it. He hasn't committed a crime, but he is an enemy combatant.

[solomon]

GBoy,

screw apologies. everyone wants an apology.

What is a high profile media apology worth anyway.

To me it is an internal thing for the Vatican to deal with.

Dan,

What he said was worse? It did not appear to be from the link. I know you dislike Lou but can you provide something he said worse than that the holocaust did not happen.

[ChotoCK]

GBoy, the excommunication was not about the holocaust or any other historic opinion, it was about the consecration of bishops without Papal approval.

Now that the excommunication is lifted, other issues can be addressed.

Bishop Williamson is being sanctioned by his community, and I am sure words are being exchanged between Rome and E'cone

[GBoy]

I believe in redemption, repentence and forgiveness. Before the Vatican took Bishop Williamson back into the church he should have been made to withdraw his lies and apolgize to the survivors and the Jewish people.

[Dan Beyer]

I'm sorry I was wrong. What the jackass said was far WORSE than denying the holocaust!

[Marctnts]

...

[Marctnts]

Here's the best collection of Jewish-related Farrakhan quotes I could find, and he clearly admits that the holocaust occurred. He happened to be using the example to claim that American Jews were financing the entire thing by saying that "Little Jews [were] being turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it.", but it does count as an admission.

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/farrakhan_own_words2/on_holocaust.asp

Granted, the link is from the ADL, but at least the quotes do appear to be sourced.

[TinaMcG]

Whatever the bishop meant or didn't mean, I'm still touched by Mr. Mandelbaum's letter. The horror his family endured is unimaginable. My heart goes out to him.

[solomon]

Dan Beyer,

Just for fun, I challenge you to post a link to anything where he has said that there was no holocaust. In comparison he compared the concept of black genocide to the so-called holocaust, but never in anything I've seen printed has he said Jews were not killed by the millions in europe by the Nazis and their Christian allies. Same with the gutter religion comment, in front of America on 60 Minutes he said he did not call Jews a gutter religion, he gave his quote that said some Jews, some Christians and some Muslims practice a gutter form of their religions.

Anyway, since you said it it must be true, point us to where he denies the holocaust. I may be wrong, I'd like to know.

[Dan Beyer]

Yeah like a jackass named Louis Farrakhan as well as may other imbeciles have over the years!

[Stifled Freedom]

Eisenhower said, when he saw the gas chambers, "get every journalist and camera in here to record what has happened here because, someday, some jackass will stand up and say this never happened?

[ChotoCK]

The excommunication does not bring them back into the fold, it is a step to rehabilitation. The excommunication was for actions, not for statements or beliefs, but actions.

If someone is falsely convicted for a crime, but holds beliefs that are abhorrent to the greater majority of society, do we not pardon him when he is found innocent because of the beliefs?

The SSPX is taking measures against Bishop Williamson, and the Pope has condemned his words, what more do you want? You want we should take him out and beat him or what?

You can't help someone who does not recognize your authority, this is what the Pope is trying to remedy.

[solomon]

Engineer,

Please look at my answer to you under "closing Gitmo..."