Group Denying Holocaust Now Uses County Address

A Torrance organization that contends that the Holocaust was an invention of Jewish propagandists and that the Nazi gas chambers never existed may have moved to Orange County, police said.

The Institute for Historical Review, founded in Torrance in the 1970s to debunk what one organization official called “the Holocaust mythology,� is using a Costa Mesa address, according to institute documents and Costa Mesa police.

But the address--1822 1/2 Newport Blvd., No. 191--is only a post office box, said Detective George Wilson. “That’s all we know,� he said.

Earl Krugel, associate director of Jewish Defense League for the western United States, said Thursday that “the most I know about it is that they were going to open an office in Santa Ana. They’ll show up somewhere. Hopefully, if they set up an office in Orange County, they’ll be driven out of there also.�

On July 4, 1984, the institute’s office near Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance was firebombed, gutting the structure and most of its contents.

“It (the apparent move) could mean that they have found the atmosphere in Torrance very uncomfortable and are looking for a new area to try to expand,� said Steve Edelman, the regional director of the Orange County Anti-Defamation League.

‘Find It Unpleasant’

“I think they will find it as unpleasant in Orange County as any place else in America,� Edelman said.

The organization, which compiles quarterly journals and sells books to further its view that 6 million Jews did not die in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, did not receive much public attention until its administrators offered a $50,000 reward several years ago to anyone who could prove that at least one Jew was gassed to death at Auschwitz, a death camp in Poland.

Mel Mermelstein, a Huntington Beach businessman who still bears a tattooed concentration camp number on his left forearm, took the group up on its offer by presenting an affidavit of his experiences at the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps in 1944.

“The last time I saw my mother and two sisters was when they were driven into what I later discovered to be the gas chamber,� Mermelstein said in an earlier interview, describing buildings used as gas chambers and pits filled with burning bodies.

In 1981, Mermelstein sued the institute and several of its members, including editorial advisory committee member Ditlieb Felderer, claiming that its administrators had reneged on their promise.

Awarded $5.25 Million

Last July, all defendants except Felderer settled with Mermelstein for an estimated $100,000.

In January, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded Mermelstein $5.25 million when Felderer was found guilty of libeling Mermelstein and causing him severe emotional distress.

In addition to mailing Mermelstein abusive tracts, Felderer allegedly sent him a swatch of hair purported to be from a gassed victim.

Mermelstein had little comment Thursday on the institute’s apparent move.

‘Picked on Wrong Guy’

“I don’t get involved in that because my only aim was to impress upon them to leave me alone,� he said.

“I don’t want to have to speak for all survivors of the destruction of European Jewry,� Mermelstein said. “But I want them to know they picked on the wrong guy to mock and defame and libel.�

However, Mermelstein did have a copy of the group’s April, 1986, newsletter, which said the group was founded by a man named W.A. Carto and that its new director is Robert Carl Berkel.

In the newsletter, Berkel wrote: “Running an institution is a big job, but I will do my best to serve you and do our mutual job, bringing history into accord with facts. The arson of the IHR headquarters on July, 4, 1984, affected me deeply. It was proof positive that the IHR was on the right track and that its enemies were unable to confront our arguments rationally.�

Berkel could not be reached for comment.