Postby joachim neander » 4 years 10 months ago (Mon Sep 28, 2015 12:41 pm)
Hello,
I'm still alive, though no more working "at full throttle" due to a serious health problem. But I hope I'll make it for still a few years to come!
By chance I stumbled over this discussion at CODOH and would like to give my two cents to it.
I studied the reports in the Dutch press - nearer to the original than the Daily Mail or the Jerusalem Post - and foud out the following .
(1) In the advertisement, the seller, Mr. Visser from Dokkum, a dealer in militaria objects, only wrote that the soap was "a rare specimen," that it was of German origin, from year 1940, and that interested parties should look for more information about "RIF" via Google. He neither said that the soap was made out of human (or Jewish) fat, nor did he even hint to it.
(2) The soap was not put on auction at eBay", but at Marktplaats. (Maybe this is an affiliate of eBay, I don't know.)
(3) The advertisement appered on the Web on February 28, 2015 and caught the attention of Mr. Arthur Graaff, an "anti-Fascist activist" who for years has been screening Marktplaats for ads of "Nazi objects" and informing the authorities, if he found some. Trading in such things can be unlawful in the Netherlands.
(4) Mr. Graaff and his colleague Kees van der Pijl, chairman of the "Dutch Anti-Fascist Society," obviously firm believers in the Jewish origin of RIF soap, informed the police and the media and asked the state prosecutor to take legal action, accusing Visser of "discrimination" and "desecration of the dead." Dutch, Belgian, French, British, and Jewish media eagerly grabbed on the sensation, all the more as spokespeople of Dutch Jewish organizations jumped on the bandwagon. The story went viral in the first days of March 2015. Critical voices came from Jews and non-Jews alike, but were mentioned in the media outlets only in passing or in a talkback. Neither Graaff nor van der Pijl are Jewish.
(5) In addition, the anti-Fascists had Marktplaats withdraw Visser's advertisement (trading in corpse parts is forbidden in Marktplaats' statutes) and exerted pressure on the organizers of militaria fairs to ban Visser, thus severely hitting him economically.
(6) Police and the state prosecutor had to act according to the law, i.e. start investigation. Visser handed his soap bars voluntarily over to the police. The Dutch National Forensic Laboratory analyzed the soap with the result that could be expected: not made of human remains. On July 3, 2015 the Dutch press reported that investigations were dropped, all the more as Visser's advertisement was "not offensive."
(7) So rehabilitated, Visser started a lawsuit against Graaff and the Anti-Fascist Society, demanding recompemse for damaging his good name and his business. The outcome is unknown to me.
The story shows:
a) belief in the "Jewish soap" myth is still widespread, notwithstanding the fact that it was officially laid to rest in 1990 by Yad Vashem;
b) it's not the Jews, but leftists ("anti-Fascists") that today are the spearheads of soap myth peddling.
