Fifty years after the Holocaust, a small but vocal group is fighting a battle that may not exist.

In recent years, few topics have become as controversial as Holocaust revisionism. It means questioning the well-documented past. It also means refuting eyewitness testimony.

Revisionists believe they need to be heard. Historians deny their legitimacy.

Karl Striedieck, who placed an advertisement in The Daily Collegian last week questioning whether the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum provides proof that Jewish people were killed in gas chambers, is a Holocaust revisionist.

Sporting well-worn jeans and a flannel shirt, Striedieck looks like any other average American -- but his views of a tragic period in world history differ enormously from the mainstream.

Striedieck first heard of Holocaust revisionism almost 10 years ago. His interest grew about five years later when he subscribed to The Journal of Historical Review, a publication of the Institute for Historical Review. Striedieck said the periodical considers any issue of history, but it is currently giving the Holocaust a lot of attention because "it is a high-profile issue."

Striedieck said he is particularly interested in Holocaust revisionism because of his German heritage and because the issue deals with the First Amendment right to speak freely about an issue that is usually kept silent.

Striedieck also said he would like to see more open debate on the subject.

Michael Berenbaum, director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, said it is not necessary to argue with revisionists.

"The Holocaust is one of the most well-documented crimes in human history," Berenbaum said. "One so-and-so whose credentials we do not know says there was no Holocaust, and the director of research at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says there is a Holocaust," he said.

Although he is a revisionist, Striedieck said that does not mean that he completely denies the Holocaust ever happened.

"The Holocaust, in general, is an event that definitely occurred," he said. But he said he does question the facts regarding methods of extermination.

Striedieck said everyone has seen the photos of crematoria and bodies, but there is something missing.

"If they have photographs of crematoria, why isn't there a single photograph of a gas chamber with bodies piled in there?" he said.

Jackson Spielvogel, associate professor of history, also said it is unnecessary to argue with revisionist statements such as this.

"The burden of proof does not rely on historians," he said, adding that historians do not need to stand up to refute the views of people like Striedieck because the Holocaust is so well documented.

In a prepared statement from the Holocaust Museum, Professor Raul Hilberg, a historian who has written several books on the Holocaust, said there is an enormous amount of evidence to prove that Jews were in fact exterminated by gassing, including:

-- the blueprints of particular concentration camps.

-- aerial photography of prisoners showing how people were walked into a gas chamber.

-- documents verifying the supply of gas.

-- the physical remains of the gas chambers.

-- the testimony from both inmates and perpetrators.

Spielvogel said revisionists play on gullible people who are willing to question the past.

"All they are really interested in is trying to get attention to their point of view," he said, adding that he wonders what it is that makes people create such fantastic stories.

Lisa Feldman, assistant professor of psychology, said revisionists construct their own reality to protect themselves from painful or scary emotions.

The emotions they could be trying to hide could be either anti-Semitism or the fact that they refuse that something as horrible as the Holocaust could happen, Feldman said.

Striedieck insists that he is not anti-Semitic and does not mean any harm to the Jewish community, and he sympathizes with those who lost relatives in the Holocaust.

"That was a tragedy to everyone who was killed," he said, adding that he has a great respect for Jewish people.

The Jewish culture is "a culture that excels," he said.

Nevertheless, Berenbaum said Holocaust revisionism is not an issue.

"All of a sudden it's subject to a debate -- there is no debate," he said.