Jewish historian says “easier to prove something did happen than did not”

By Carolyn Yeager

IT SHOULDN'T BE UP TO REVISIONISTS TO PROVE the Holocaust didn't happen.

It is up to proponents of the Holocaust to prove that it did. Unfortunately for them, no proof exists though the believers believe that it does.

As a recent case in point, a Hebrew University historian has discovered that proving something did not happen is difficult. He says it's because such proof is based on the absence of evidence rather than its presence.

Prof. Shaul Stampfer (left) has spent the last four years studying the Khazar Kingdom, seeking to discover whether the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe are descended from the Khazarians who are claimed by some to have converted to Judaism in the eighth century. This theory gained prominence when Tel Aviv professor Shlomo Sand published his book “The Invention of the Jewish People” in 2008. The book became a best seller and was translated into several languages. Sand argued that Ashkenazi Jews had no connection to the so-called land of Israel. 

Stampfer, who is considered an expert in Jewish history, analyzed material from various fields, but found no reliable source for the claim that the Khazars converted to Judaism. “There never was a conversion by the Khazar king or the Khazar elite,” he said. “The conversion of the Khazars is a myth with no factual basis.” 

In an article published this month in the journal “Jewish Social Studies,” Stampfer concluded that there is no evidence to support the assertion. “Such a conversion, even though it’s a wonderful story, never happened,” Stampfer said.

As a historian, he said he was surprised to discover how hard it is to prove that something didn’t happen.

“Until now, most of my research has been aimed at discovering or clarifying what did happen in the past ... It’s a much more difficult challenge to prove that something didn’t happen than to prove it did. 

“The silence of so many sources about the Khazars’ Judaism is very suspicious. The Byzantines, the geonim [Jewish religious leaders of the sixth to eleventh centuries], the sages of Egypt – none of them have a word about the Jewish Khazars.”

Stampfer said his research had no political motives, though he recognizes that the topic is politically fraught. “It’s a really interesting historical question, but it has political implications,” he said. “As a historian, I’m naturally worried by the misuse of history. I think history should be removed from political discussions, but anyone who nevertheless wants to use history must at least present the correct facts. In this case, the facts are that the Khazars didn’t convert, the Jews aren’t descendants of the Khazars and the contemporary political problems between Israelis and Palestinians must be dealt with on the basis of current reality, not on the basis of a fictitious past.”

Holocaust yet to be proved

In like measure, the Jewish holocaust story has been presented as fact, and many have strong political reasons for upholding it. So even though the evidence that it did happen is not there, it's difficult to convince people it didn't happen once they are convinced it did.

When the Revisionist movement began to ask questions the upholders of the holocaust couldn't answer (as in the Vidal-Naquet quote below), the upholders slapped the label “holocaust denier" on them and worked to get laws passed in order to scare them off and shut them up.

However, the simple fact is, there has never been a book or a court case that definitively demonstrated how, when and where, in real time, the events making up “the Holocaust” took place ... including the famous International Military Tribunals. For example, mass murder by gassing thousands of persons at a time in assembly line fashion in rooms, the disposal of their poison-impregnated bodies immediately afterward by burning, and the subsequent disposal of mounds of ashes. Aerial photography taken at times when this was supposed to be happening do not show any evidence of such activity. In addition, no mass burial sites of corpses or ashes at these locations have been found.

This adds up to no forensic evidence for said crimes, only accusations and prejudiced witness testimony. The two prerequisites for any murder verdict—a dead body and a murder weapon—are missing.

Numerous weak excuses or explanations for this are given, which most people accept because they don't want to challenge the whole belief structure, but they are definitely not adequate, especially for serious historians. For example, back in 1979 in France, a very famous historian answered this way:

“One must not ask oneself how, technically, such a mass murder was possible. It was technically possible, since it happened. […] there may not be any debate on the existence of the gas chambers.” (P.Vidal-Naquet, Le Monde)

This is shameful, but it passed without comment for political reasons. No 'facts' were presented by Vidal-Naquet, as Professor Stampfer says is necessary. As I've said, there is no hard evidence that backs up the three pillars of the Holocaust: the homicidal gas chambers (1) in which several million Jews were murdered (2) through a planned program of extermination by the Nazis (3). The only thing that happened was the decision to deport the Jews from Europe, then the later plan to put them in camps and the ultimate moving them about to various labor camps due to the ongoing world war. Most Jews survived the war and the camps and even the deportations. They survived better than the Germans did.

These facts are drowned out by the drum-beating, media-controlling Holocaust Lobby which is composed almost entirely of well-financed Jewish organizations. They also have way more influence over top government officials, including presidents and prime ministers, than they should have considering the minor importance of the issue and the very small population group it involves. This is how history becomes fraught with politics and is misused, as Prof. Stampfer warns.

If the Holocaust enforcers were forced to prove that the “murder of 6 million” actually happened instead of holocaust revisionists being forced to prove that it did not, this whole sleazy episode and all the misfortune it has brought in its wake would have been over long ago. We need to keep that firmly in mind.