By Michael Philips. First-Published: January 3, 1996 (alt.revisionism)

Hey lurkers! After browsing through alt.revisionism posts for awhile, you may already have figured out how to become a Holocaust revisionist. It's easy.

For those of you considering such a move, be assured that it requires no preparation or scholarly research. Simply follow the guidelines below, as the revisionists on this newsgroup have done, and you'll quickly be on the road to deluding yourself that someone out there takes you seriously, and that you are valiantly fighting the evil forces of some undefined, implausible conspiracy.

1. Creamed Mush with Fog Sauce -- Never provide evidence for your assertions. In fact, respond to demands for evidence the way Dracula responds to crucifixes. Do anything you can to avoid it. Throw insults. Change the subject. Obfuscate. Laugh derisively. Claim you already gave the evidence or that someone else did. But never provide any evidence yourself (unless you provide an incomplete or incomprehensible citation along with it).

2. Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose -- Demand that all evidence for the Holocaust be proved genuine (dodging any discussion of what that proof would consist of), and also demand that all your unsubstantiated assertions be proved false. That way, you never bear any burden of proof. (originally posted by Mike Stein)

3. Hello, I'm a Cremation Expert -- Claim that the 52 Auschwitz furnaces could not have had the capacity to burn 4,756 corpses per day because modern commercial crematoriums don't have such a capacity. When its pointed out to you that there's no comparison between ordinary commercial crematoriums and those built in the camps, for a variety of reasons -- e.g. coffins were not used, one can cremate more than one corpse in a single retort, etc. -- ignore this and repeat the claim.

4. And I'm a Chemist too! -- Express a series of doubts and claims about the properties of Zyklon-B, the gas used to kill people in Auschwitz gas chambers. For example, claim that Zyklon-B is not an ideal agent for mass gassing, and therefore the Nazis shouldn't have used it and thus they *didn't* use it. Even better, claim that they *couldn't* have used it because the gas lingering in the chamber after the murders would have killed anyone trying to enter the chambers to remove the corpses. When someone explains to you (countless times) that some of the gas chambers had powerful ventilation systems to remove the gas and in other cases people entering wore gas masks, argue that despite the ventilation there would still somehow be enough residual gas in the chambers to kill people.

Keep waving a DuPont brochure around in an attempt to ward off those who know more about chemistry than you do. Also claim that ventilating the gas would cause problems to individuals downwind. When someone explains to you that the gas is lighter than air, just quietly go away for awhile or change the subject or complain about a mean word they may have used.

5. Sticks and Stones -- If you're being wiped out with evidence and reasoning you cannot refute, you can always take refuge in complaining about the language being used by your adversaries. For example, if they say, "I've already explained that it takes less gas to kill people than lice, and therefore there are fewer cyanide residues remaining on the gas chamber walls than on the delousing chamber walls, you moron," you can respond by complaining about their use of the word "moron." You can actually evade quite a bit of serious discussion by spending a lot of time condescendingly lecturing the newsgroup about their use of trashy language. But this approach doesn't work very well in building credibility. You may view yourself as an arbiter of social discourse but you'll actually come off like a den-mother scurrying around excoriating the little Cub Scouts to behave themselves.

6. Oh Sorry, I Ate the Last One -- Claim that Jews and other prisoners were not intentionally starved, that they were victims of food shortages just like everybody else. When it is pointed out that neither the camp guards nor people living in the vicinity of the camps starved to death, just claim that this does not prove there was an intentional starvation policy, and that if there is no piece of paper with a written order to starve people, then no starvation occurred.

7. The "What's It Mean?" Spiral of Infinity -- Try to keep your opponents off balance by constantly shifting or questioning the definitions of words. For example, if your opponent states that historians generally agree that 1 million Jews were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, you can ask, what do you mean by "historian" or what do you mean by "Jew" or what do you mean by "agree?" Alternatively, when confronted with the evidence that Himmler called for the "ausrotten" of the Jews, argue that ausrotten doesn't really mean extermination. When proof of that definition is provided by German dictionaries and German speakers on the newsgroup, just ignore it.

8. Now You See It, Now You Don't -- Argue that the gas chambers never existed because they are not still standing. Of course, by this logic, the Mayflower, Carthage, Jimmy Hoffa, and large portions of the Great Wall never existed. When this is pointed out to you, ignore it.

9. Kafka Was Here -- Argue that the gas chambers never existed because there are no photos or drawings of them. When you are presented with photos and drawings, state that they could not possibly be actual photos/drawings of gas chambers because the gas chambers never existed because there are no photos/drawings of them because they never existed because...

10. Fun With Math -- Charge the anti-revisionists with playing numbers games while engaging in them yourself. For example, argue that the "holohoaxers" have changed the estimated number of Jews killed at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1 million. When it's pointed out to you that the 4 million figure was supplied by the Soviets and refers to the total number of victims, not just Jews, and has always been considered ridiculously inflated by non-Soviet historians who have never varied from the 1 million figure for Jews, just repeat that the holohaoxers have changed the number of Jews killed at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1 million and that the Holocaust is therefore a hoax. The point of this tactic, of course, is to try to make ALL the death figures questionable. If 4 million is unreliable, then 1 million is likewise unreliable, and you just keep revising the numbers downward until you reach zero, and then - poof! - no Holocaust!

11. The Great Leap -- This tactic goes like this: If one piece of testimony about the Holocaust seems unreliable, then ALL testimony about the Holocaust is unreliable. If one Holocaust witness may have recanted something on the stand, then all other Holocaust witnesses are liars. If some camp prisoners did not starve to death, then NONE of them starved to death. etc. But be careful. This is a double-edged sword -- someone may use the well-documented lies of other revisionists to conclude that YOU are a liar as well.

12. But I'm Not Anti-Semitic -- Try to find examples of misdeeds by an individual Jewish person, then imply that this makes all Jews look bad. When you are asked why you think one Jew represents all Jews but that one Christian doesn't represent all Christians, ignore the question.

13. Grab Bag of Idiocy -- Here are a few quick claims you can easily make, although be forewarned that they will immediately make you look like an imbecile:

• a) Claim that "the Jews" declared war on Hitler (whatever that means), and that anything he did to them was an act of self-defense;
• b) With absolutely zero supporting evidence, claim that the corpses in the Auschwitz furnaces would have exploded, damaging the furnaces and thereby bringing the corpse cremation figures into question;
• c) Argue that because the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC has a small model of a gas chamber and not a full-scale model, this somehow proves that gas chambers did not exist during WWII;
• d) Argue that the existence of a brothel in Auschwitz means there could not have been gas chambers there.

14. If you don't want to look like a total buffoon, there's always the pseudo-academic, above-the-fray approach. With a huge dose of arrogance and superiority, explain that you are neither a revisionist nor any other "label", merely someone with a healthy skepticism about everything, including Holocaust history (ALL of it), and that you are conducting your own research to determine for yourself whether certain Holocaust incidents actually took place. Pretend to be totally impartial (despite the avalanche of Holocaust evidence you would encounter the minute you actually began any legitimate research), but in your posts only question the Holocaust historians' statements, not revisionists' statements.

15. Alternatively claim that:

• a) the Jews in the camps died as a result of allied bombing;
• b) the Jews weren't killed in the camps but were sent to Russia; and
• c) the Jews never even went to the camps because the railroad capacity was insufficient. When someone points out that these are mutually exclusive, and that it would be a neat trick for allied bombs in 1944 to result in the deaths of Jews in 1942, ignore it.

16. As for the motive behind the Holocaust "hoax", claim that the Holocaust was invented near the end of WWII by people who foresaw the establishment of the state of Israel, and also foresaw that Israel would face years of conflict with its neighbors, and also foresaw the consequent need for U.S. military and financial aid to Israel, and also foresaw possible public opposition to such aid, and so they invented a huge hoax with thousands of phony witnesses and documents so that those who might oppose the aid to Israel would feel sorry for Jews and wouldn't oppose the aid. When someone points out to you that this is sheer idiocy and that acts of genocide do not automatically turn on the aid spigot to the victims, ignore them.

17. Although all of your arguments will be consistently blown to smithereens, just wait a few days or weeks and then re-post them.

18. Remember that the revisionist community is peopled mainly by racists, white-supremacists, Israel-bashers, and Nazis. This means that everyone except these kinds of people will dismiss you. But don't let that stop you. Don't let your Fellini-esque, internally inconsistent, un-researched, hypocritical distortions and lies prevent you from continuing to post. After all, you're fighting for the truth (as you'd like it to be).