— University of Michigan students and faculty organized a campus protest against solicitation letters sent to the community within the last two weeks by the “Legion for the Survival of Freedom” and the “Institute for Historical Review” in California. The letters insist that the Holocaust never took place and offered a book order form for such titles as “Six Million Lost and Found,” “The Kangaroo Court of Nuremberg” and “Anne Frank’s Diary-A Hoax.”
University of Michigan groups formed Students Concerned About Reoccurence (SCAR) in response to the letters. SCAR published a full-page advertisement in the campus newspaper, the Michigan Daily, held a forum on “Hate Groups in the 80s, “and held an outdoor campus memorial service for the victims of the Holocaust.
The advertisement published in the Michigan Daily April I was signed by more than 300 Jewish and non-Jewish students and faculty, as well as 14 organizations. Entitled “An Open Letter to the University Community,” the advertisement was also posted at various campus locations. The advertisement stated:
“Recently, many students here at the university have received an affront to their intelligence and moral sensibilities in the form of a letter. The envelope of this letter displayed the return address of the Legion for the Survial of Freedom but the letter inside identified the sender as the Institute for Historical Review, a West Coast-based organization devoted to rewriting the history of the Second World War.
EXPRESSION OF OUTRAGE
“We are outraged that they deny the existence of anti-Semitism in Nazi German….claim Anne Frank’s diary is a forgery….claim the Nazi furnaces are part of an ancient Jewish fantasy….claim that a ‘Zionist-controlled (read Jewish-controlled) media and academic establishment have created the ‘myth’ of the Holocaust in order to lead Americans to war….”
Continuing the advertisement said; “We, the undersigned recognize that the university is a forum for conflicting ideas and interpretations, but the existence of the Holocaust is an indisputable historical fact. To state otherwise is a malicious lie slandering not only the millions of Jews and other ‘inferior’ groups murdered by the Nazis, but also the camp survivors and those of us who recognize these murders and feel it is crucial that they not be forgotten.
“These ‘revisionist’ theories have no historical foundation and should not be legitimized in the academic community. As we again witness the Nazis marching we must not forget….the occurrence of the Holocaust….that a Western ‘civilized’ society is capable of perpetrating cold-blooded genocide….the inherent anti-Semitism and racism of Nazi ideology….”
The forum on “Hate Groups in the 80s” began with a student-produced multi-media program on the Vilna Ghetto. Martin Doctoroff, of Detroit, a member of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith’s national board and its committee on national law and civil rights, told the students that the Institute for Historical Review is a front group for the rightwing Liberty Lobby.
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