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Jewish Community News
News: May 2004
Holocaust denier at San Jose State, few attend talk
By Cecily Ruttenberg
Bradley R. Smith, a self-proclaimed “Holocaust Revisionist,” — others say “Holocaust Denier” — spoke to a small group of students at San Jose State University early last month.
Turnout to the lecture was slim — 19 people — and most came as critics of the talk.
Still local Jewish organizations were concerned.
“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,” said Arlene Miller, director of Hillel of Silicon Valley. “I’m not sure what this falls under, but if it is hate speech, no, it shouldn’t be allowed.”
Janet Berg, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council for Silicon Valley, said she doesn’t think Smith holds much power, “I think most people are too smart to fall for his ludicrous claims, but his message is dangerous and trivializes the memory of 6 million Jews.”
Concern rested not only on Bradley’s message, but on his tactic of placing full page ads in college newspapers, including in SJSU’s daily newspaper, The Spartan Daily.
“I’d like to see the Spartan Daily put some policies in place that prevent people like Bradley Smith from taking out ads that are so offensive and inaccurate,” said Arlene Miller.
Smith is director and sole member of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, an organization dedicated to “revising” Holocaust history. According to Smith’s website, gas chambers did not exist, far fewer Jews than reported were killed and Nazi Germany never held a plan of genocide.
Gas chambers, he claimed, were actually crematories where the already dead went for cremation. All the corpses? Not a result of systematic extermination, Smith says, but a result of disease and starvation caused by overcrowding.
Smith travels around the country speaking at universities and running ads that question the Holocaust in student newspapers. In the last three years, he has had little money to run ads as he has few financial supports. He often emphasizes the importance of free speech, convincing student editors to overlook the questionable content of the ad, says Harvey Gotliffe, SJSU professor who has been tracking Smith for seven years.
“When I interviewed Bradley Smith and asked him why he goes after the college students, he said they are young and they haven’t made up their minds yet,” Gotliffe said. “As if there was something to make up their minds about.”
Despite his best efforts, Smith failed to sway any of the attendees at his lecture to question Holocaust facts. “It upset me to hear what he was saying, but it felt good that I wasn’t the only one in the room (who disagreed with him). To see that no one even showed (up) felt good,” Jacob Orrin, a business administration major, told the Spartan Daily.
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