Saw Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. It was an Errol Morris film about Fred Leuchter, a reluctant holocaust denier. Leuchter seems like an amiable sort of nerd. He is mousy, opinionated, and seems strangely innocent. He blundered into the execution-device industry at a young age but I never got the sense that he truly understood his job in anything but abstract, moralistic terms. He defends his grisly vocation by citing the need for compassion and humanity (at one point he bemoans the boring sterility of the cement room where lethal injections take place.) By chance, he becomes an expert in all methods of execution. He is therefore asked to help with the defense of a Canadian holocaust denier who published pamphlets claiming that there were no gas chambers. Leuchter goes to Auschwitz to take chippings off the walls of various chambers. When he comes back, he has the cement chips analyzed without telling the lab what they are looking for. When they find no trace of cyanide gas, he concludes that there could be no gas chambers and publishes a career (and life) destroying report.
The point of this documentary is not to sleazily speculate on the correctness of his conclusion. All along this story his methods are heavily criticized. Leuchter claims there was no ventilation, but the historian tells us there was, it was simply removed later. All of this is recorded in the camp archives but, the historian disdainfully explains, Leuchter can not even read German. The bricks, we are told, had long since been removed and recycled. The bricks which remain come from other buildings. The samples were not analyzed correctly for a surface-coating of cyanide because the lab was not given instructions.
This documentary is primarily concerned with how Leuchter got into this horrible stance. It is suggested that he initially over-prized his powers of observation and deduction. His wife read mystery novels while he collected samples. An unfavorable comparison to Sherlock Holmes is brought up (an especially apt reference, given Conan Doyle's own dubious belief in fairies and the weight given to his opinion, incorrectly transferred from his prowess as an author. Similarly, what does even an expert executioner know about the holocaust?) When confronted by his failures, he doubles down, pugnaciously insisting that he did everything possible and is convinced of his correctness, historical and political ramifications be damned. This kind of posture of fearless truth-teller is also unfortunately typical of nerds. We love to be right and if it makes someone else wrong, so much the worse for them.
He is called a simpleton by the Neo-Nazi publisher who printed his report (a man who claims to have been turned Neo-Nazi when he read Leuchter's report.) An incandescent director of a holocaust survivor's center calls him an antisemite and hate-monger. The historian who explains his errors cannot believe his lack of respect for the monuments he chiseled at, apparently innocent of what they meant and symbolized. The film seems to lean more toward interpreting his actions as those of a proud fool. He has made an error but after his friends and family turn on him and after he is persecuted by total strangers, he inevitably turns to the welcoming arms of "revisionist historians."
One of the most important lessons of the holocaust, I feel, is that we as a species are capable of such things. It could happen again if we are not careful. The point of this film seems to be that holocaust denial could happen to anyone if they are not careful. One of the talking heads says she does not hate Leuchter. She pities him.
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