Mel Gibson's Father Says Holocaust Exaggerated

[kskiska]

A week before the United States release of Mel Gibson's controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ, the filmmaker's father has repeated claims the Holocaust was exaggerated.

(snip)

In his interview on WSNR radio's Speak Your Piece, to be broadcast on Monday, Hutton Gibson, argued that many European Jews counted as death camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries like Australia and the United States.

"It's all -- maybe not all fiction -- but most of it is," he said, adding that the gas chambers and crematoria at camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so many people.

"Do you know what it takes to get rid of a dead body? To cremate it?" he said. "It takes a litre of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not have the gas to do it. That's why they lost the war."

more…
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/19/1077072756433.html

[indepat]

1. The man comes off as an ignoramus, an idiot or just maybe an ideological

zealot, maybe even all three.

[soleft]

2. this is beyond ideology

If this is what his father is like you can see why Mel is in need of a father figure, much like w.

[ChompySnack]

3. Utterly disgusting

What a stupid, deluded human being. I will never watch another Gibson movie. Ever.

[SaveElmer]

5. In all fairness to Mel

He has explicitly disagreed with this statement. It is the natural reaction of a son to defend a father, no matter how much you disagree with them.

[seemslikeadream]

6. I wonder how Mel feels about the selling of nails as jewelry

to go with the movie. Heard it on CNN this morning.

[nonconformist]

15. I saw that too

I'm not religious and it seemed highly inappropriate even to me.

[leftchick]

16. do you have a link for that?

I have heard he refuses to address the issue at all. I do know he would not allow screening of his film to be seen by Jewish leaders when they requested it. Though he did allow many Christian pastors and pundits to view it. Hmmm, perhaps his daddy's values were showing?

[Ocean188]

7. My father

has nothing to do with what I do for a living. Lucky for me his son is not a actor/director and the newspapers don't feel that my father's viewpoints are news. Mel's father is old,confused and wrong but he and his son are two different people.

[deutsey]

4. Does this moron actually think people say

that all 6 million victims were cremated in the Holocaust?

There were other methods of genocide used in the "Final Solution".

[UpInArms]

8. Mr. Gibson should read the report

made by William W. Quinn, Colonel, C.S.C., A C of S, G-2, 7th U.S. Army on Dachau, 1933 - 1945

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/

"Dachau, 1933-1945, will stand for all time as one of history's most gruesome symbols of unhumanity. There our troops found sights, sounds, and stenches horrible beyond belief, cruelties so enormous as to be incomprehensible to the normal mind. Dachau and death were synonymous." Col. William W. Quinn, 7th U.S. ARMY

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/KZDachau/CrematoriaArea/OldCrematorium.html

Old Crematorium at Dachau

"Next, I was led to the storage warehouse. This large building contained the naked dead bodies of over 4,000 men, women and children, thrown one on top of the other like sacks of potatoes. The odor was terrific. I vomited three times in less than five minutes. It was the most revolting smell I had ever experienced...Next to the Warehouse of dead bodies, was the crematory itself; a large, double furnace, each capable of being stuffed with five or six copses at once. The dead bodies were dragged from the Warehouse, jammed into the red-hot furnace. But even then, the Nazis were not through! The ashes of the victims were used as fertilizer for the flower gardens and the vegetable gardens - no wonder the flowers were so beautiful!" Lt. Col. Walter Fellenz, 42nd Rainbow Division, from his Report to the Commanding General, 6 May 1945

...more...

and

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/KZDachau/CrematoriaArea/NewCrematorium01.html

The photograph below shows the new crematorium building, called Baracke X, which was completed in April 1943. It is located in the area which Lt. Col. Fellenz described in his report, which is quoted at the top of the page. The twelve-foot high hedge which he described was a line of poplar trees planted close together. The American soldiers in the 45th Thunderbird division of the US Seventh Army, who participated in the liberation of the camp on April 29, 1945, approached the concentration camp from the west side and came upon this crematorium building before they reached the gate into the prison compound.

The photograph below, taken from behind the building, shows the north end of Baracke X. The door leads to a morgue room next to the oven room. The soldiers of the 42nd Rainbow Division, who also participated in the liberation of Dachau, were given a guided tour by the inmates after the camp was surrendered. They were told that gas chambers in this building were routinely used to murder prisoners in the camp. In the photograph, you can see branches of a beautiful chestnut tree, planted after the liberation, which stands behind the new crematorium. There is a bench under this tree where one can rest in the shade and contemplate the nearby mass grave of thousands of unknown victims of the Dachau concentration camp. A restroom is through a door on this side of the crematorium. Another restroom is at the other end of the building in the hallway where the doors open into the disinfection gas chambers. (There are also new modern restrooms in the east wing of the administration building where the museum is located.)
**************

Such ignorance is inexcusable and is also dangerous - these people that do not accept or understand the horror that facism promotes are complicit pawns in the destruction of civilization.

(edited for grammar)

[kskiska]

21. I've visited Dachau

It's all that and more. The photographic displays alone more than prove the case. I'm sure Mel can afford to send his father on a little trip to Germany to see for himself.

[GreyV]

9. Exaggerated?

Exaggerated? ...I don't know. But abused for political purposes by people who have some seriously malicious agendas? Most definitely!

[saltpoint]

10. What's to stop us from concluding that --

-- Hutton Gibson is a delusional asshole?

Are he and Fred Phelps poker buddies?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I hate ignorant fools

Tell that to the fifty family members who died at Treblynka.

I hate these morons, but explains sonny's attitude... and yes I expect taht movie to stoke up antisemitism.

[dfong63]

12. mel gibson is getting a bad rap here

blaming the son for his father's views - that is wrong.

seems clear to me - blaming a son for his father's views is the same kind of thinking that blames "the jews" for killing Christ.

[jackstraw45]

13. Think Mel feels any differently deep down?

His comments on gays tell me all I need to know.

The guy is a bigot. If he's not able, for political reasons, to speak what he feels about jews, he certainly had no problem bashing homosexuals and refusing to apologize for it.

Like father like son.

If I want to watch a movie with lots of pain, I'll rent Lethal Weapon 4 or 5 or 6....

[maddogesq]

14. I dare Mr. Gibson to say that to my WW2 vet father's face.

Dad might explain that he saw the ovens still going right after the war eneded in Europe. He might also tell the story of a crazy sarge that made the residents of a small German village walk out to see an opene mass grave with hundreds of bodies.

This is insane. I will not watch any more of Mel's movies, ever.

[frankly_fedup2]

17. Mel Gibson's father, unfortunately, by

making such a statement, is going to hurt the film that Gibson has been trying for so long to get out into theaters.

I had planned to go see it . . . not quite sure now.

Wonder if Mr. Gibson told his father that, antisemitism is a sin?

[bobthedrummer]

18. This is beyond my understanding.

But I will never forget.

[Brucey]

19. I recommend the documentary film

Night and Fog, which documents many of the brutal and large-scale atrocities.

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

20. What a jerk

Peculiar he knows the time involved and amount of fuel required for cremation. Just to be grisly I would speculate no fuel required once you get the temperature up and everything rolling. The Roman Catholic church was so enabling and in cahoots with the Nazis that I guess I'm not surprised reading this.