From the Oz:

Second Aussie joins Holocaust denial conference
Pia Akerman and Richard Sproull
December 14, 2006

AN electrical engineer who works for federal agency Airservices Australia has told a revisionist Holocaust conference in Iran there were no mass killings at Treblinka, one of the Nazis’ most notorious concentration camps.
Richard Krege, who is on annual leave from the Canberra-based agency, said that only 5000 people died at Treblinka, from disease, and used his own model of the concentration camp to illustrate his claims.

Most historians believe that at least 800,000 prisoners were murdered in the camp, which was in Poland during World War II.

Mr Krege based his argument on a soil survey he undertook at Treblinka in October 1999, claiming to have found no evidence of mass graves.

Adelaide Institute director Frederick Toben, who claims there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz nor room for the Jews - at least 1.1 million - whose deaths there were recorded in Nazi records, was unable to join him on that trip because he was incarcerated in Germany, charged with Holocaust denial.

“All that exists are the words of some people,” Mr Krege said. “There is no scientific proof to show that this place was an extermination camp.”

Mr Krege has commented on books about Treblinka using his Airservices Australia email address.

A spokesman for the agency, which services airtraffic control facilities around the nation, said Mr Krege’s manager was unaware he was visiting Iran.

“What he does on leave is his own personal business,” the spokesman said, adding that Mr Krege would be “counselled” for using his work email to promote his views on the Holocaust.

Mr Krege travelled to Iran with Dr Toben, who yesterday met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the host of the conference.

Mr Ahmadinejad, who has expressed the view that Israel must be “wiped out from the map”, told conference participants in a private meeting that Israel would suffer the same fate as the former Soviet Union.

“When I said what was in the mind of the nation, that this regime (Israel) would disappear, the Zionist network attacked me a lot,” Mr Ahmadinejad said.

“But just as the USSR disappeared, soon the Zionist regime will disappear.”

The Iranian President, who has described the Holocaust as a “myth” invented to justify the occupation of Palestinian land, was the instigator of the conference.

According to Dr Toben’s website, the German-born Australian told Mr Ahmadinejad that Jewish Australians were ready to take him to court upon his return home.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry is preparing to launch legal action against Dr Toben for failure to obey a 2002 Federal Court order to remove anti-Jewish material from his website.

International leaders continued to condemn the conference, which concluded on Tuesday.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as “shocking beyond belief” and an indictment of the policies being pursued by its organiser, Mr Ahmadinejad.

“What further evidence do you need to have that this regime is extreme?” Mr Blair said.

A White House spokesman labelled the conference an “affront to the entire civilised world”.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on an official visit to Germany, said it served only to underline the security threat posed by Iran. Mr Olmert laid a wreath at a Berlin train station from which 50,000 Jews were herded on to trains heading for the Nazi death camps.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressing a press conference with Mr Olmert, rejected “in the strongest terms” the denials of the Holocaust.

“Germany will never accept this and will use all possibilities at its disposal to oppose it,” she said.

The Vatican stressed the “appalling tragedy” of the Holocaust and warned of the dangers of denying historical evidence.

“The memory of these terrible events must remain as a warning to consciences in order to eliminate conflicts, to respect the legitimate rights of all people, to plead for peace with truth and with justice,” the Holy See said.