The video below is of British Bishop Richard Williamson giving an interview to Swedish TV, in Germany, in November 2008 (broadcast January 21, 2009).
During the interview, Bishop Williamson outlines his views on the Holocaust. He states that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to kill a mass numbers of Jews, did not exist. He goes on to state that he believes only “200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers.”
The Vatican responded immediately to the anti-Semitic comments made by Bishop Williamson, stating that these were unacceptable and violated Church teaching. Pope Benedict XVI also reaffirmed his contempt for all forms of anti-Semitism, urging the same of all Roman Catholics.
However, January 21, 2009, the day the interview was broadcast was also the day the Pope lifted the Bishop’s excommunication from the Church. Bishop Williamson had been excommunicated in 1988 after he and three other priests were consecrated without papal consent. Vatican officials later said that they had not been aware of Williamson’s views prior to the lifting of the excommunication.
As a result of the interview taking place in Germany, and Holocaust denial in Germany being a serious criminal offense, German prosecutors filed a complaint against the Bishop on October 18th, 2009. If the court decides to accept the complaint, a decision is expected to be reached next week, the Bishop could either face public trial or pay a hefty fine.
The use of gas chambers by the Nazis to kill millions of Jews has repeatedly been confirmed by sources including the Vrba-Wetzler report, German soldiers, and testimony from Rudolf Höss, Commandant of the Auschiwitz concentration camp, not to mention Jewish survivors and Allied troops who liberated (and filmed) the concentration camps. However, as the years go by and first hand eyewitnesses die out, pro-Nazi revisionists increasingly try to deny the existance of the gas chambers.
