Soap Story
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See: Human skin lampshades

'Jewish Soap' by Mark Weber

Quotes
In fact, blame for the soap story lies rather with individuals such as Simon Wiesenthal and Stephen Wise, organizations like the World Jewish Congress, and the victorious Allied powers, none of whom has ever apologized for promoting this vile falsehood.
    Why did Bauer and Krakowski decide that this was the appropriate time to officially abandon the soap story? Krakowski himself hints that a large part of the motivation for this "tactical retreat" has been to save what's left of the sinking Holocaust ship by throwing overboard the most obvious falsehoods. In the face of the growing Revisionist challenge, easily demonstrable falsehoods like the soap story have become dangerous embarrassments because they raise doubts about the entire Holocaust legend. As Krakowski put it: "Historians have concluded that soap was not made from human fat. When so many people deny the Holocaust ever happened, why give them something to use against the truth?"
    The bad faith of those making this calculated and belated concession to truth is shown by their failure to note that the soap myth was authoritatively "confirmed" at Nuremberg, and by their unwillingness to deal with the implications of that confirmation for the credibility of the Tribunal and other supposedly trustworthy authorities in establishing other, more fundamental aspects of the Holocaust story.
    The striking contrast between the prompt postwar disavowal by the British government of the infamous "human soap" lie of the First World War, and the way in which a similarly baseless propaganda story from the Second World War was officially endorsed by the victorious Allied powers and then authoritatively maintained for so many years not only points up the dispiriting lack of integrity on the part of so many Western historians, but underscores the general decline in Western ethical standards during this century.
    The "human soap" story demonstrates anew the tremendous impact that a wartime rumor, no matter how fantastic, can have once it has taken hold, particularly when it is disseminated as a propaganda lie by influential individuals and powerful organizations. That so many intelligent and otherwise thoughtful people could ever have seriously believed that the Germans distributed bars of soap brazenly labeled with letters indicating that they were manufactured from Jewish corpses shows how readily even the most absurd Holocaust fables can be -- and are -- accepted as fact.    'Jewish Soap' by Mark Weber

Also presented as fact was the story the Nazis made soap from the bodies of Jews. Let's examine this one a little more closely. Now the Soviets actually submitted supposed Jewish soap at the Nuremberg Trials. But today, Holocaust scholars like Raul Hilberg, Yehuda Bauer and Deborah Lipstadt agree that these accusations are groundless.
    Let's be more specific here. Simon Wiesenthal, perhaps one of the most recognizable names in the Holocaust arena, wrote in 1946 in a series of articles for an Austrian Jewish paper, about boxes of Jewish soap:
    "On the boxes were the initials "R.I.F." ( pure Jewish fat). These boxes were destined for the Waffen-SS. The wrapping paper revealed with complete cynical objectively, that the soap was manufactured from Jewish bodies. The civilized world may not believe the joy with which the Nazis and their women and the general government thought of this soap.
In each piece of soap they saw a Jew who had been magically put there and had thus been prevented from growing into a second Freud, Erlich or Einstein."
    How very fiendish! It's not hard to imagine such devilish behavior after decades of seeing two-dimensional Nazi villains in movies and on TV.
    The soap story has also been immortalized in William Shirer's best-selling Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as well as in countless other Holocaust articles, books and even school textbooks.
    But can we speak with such certainty about this incredible atrocity? Nowadays, those designated as Holocaust "experts" are as firm as Wiesenthal and Shirer regarding the soap story, except that they say it isn't true.
    In 1981, professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust expert Deborah Lipstadt wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Times that
    "the fact is, the Nazis never used the bodies of Jews, or for that matter, anyone else, for the production of soap. The soap rumor was prevalent both during and after the war. It may have had its origin in the cadaver factory atrocity story that came out of World War I. The soap rumor was thoroughly investigated after the war and proved to be untrue."
Now that's pretty clear!
    And Shmuel Krakowski, Director of Archives of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Center, confirmed in a Chicago Tribune article titled, "A Holocaust Belief Cleared Up" that:
    "historians have concluded that soap was not made from human fat."
    Now I have a few reasonable questions: First, has anyone told Simon Wiesenthal that he's wrong? Secondly, if there was no soap made from Jews, then that means the Nuremberg "soap" and the testimony about "human soap" at Nuremberg is wrong. Third, Deborah Lipstadt speaks of a thorough investigation of the soap story and Shmuel Krakowski speaks of historians having concluded that the soap story is wrong.
    By speaking of a thorough investigation and a consensus by historians, Lipstadt and Krakowski are able to drop the soap story while at the same time affirming their faith in the soundness of establishment Holocaust history.
    But is that faith appropriate? Not only was the soap story not thoroughly investigated and refuted after the war but even today there is no consensus among historians and experts concerning the soap story.
    As recently as 1991 Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff was talking about having seen Jewish soap with his own eyes. And Dr. Piper? Well, he still supports the discredited soap story.
    Piper: There were such attempts as these using human flesh for soap in the other concentration camps, Stutthof in Gdansk [Danzig].
    Cole: So that was where it was done?
    Piper: There were made such attempts.
    As you can see, the Holocaust experts prove themselves hypocrites when they tell you there is no need to question the Holocaust story, that it has already been proven beyond question.
    And here I don't mean to suggest that the soap story is the only thing the experts are not in unison about. Far more importantly, even though they present a united front in support of the gas chamber concept, many of them realize there is little documentation for it. David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper, Director, Auschwitz State Museum