David Cole is a American filmmaker with a Jewish background, making his work on the Holocaust incredibly controversial.
More specifically, I'm referring to his 1992 documentary David Cole in Auschwitz, in which he interviewed Franciszek Piper, the Senior Curator and Head of Archives at the Auschwitz State Museum.
In short, he said that the gas chamber at Auschwitz Main Camp displayed to visitors was not an original wartime structure but a post-war reconstruction, acknowledging it had been converted into an air raid shelter in 1944 with its ceiling openings sealed and internal walls added, and that after the war, the interior walls were removed and the ceiling openings recreated to restore its earlier appearance—though not all original details, like gas-tight doors, were replicated.
He also gave contradictory accounts about the frequency of gassings, first stating they occurred for only about 20–30 minutes per day and later describing repeated gassings happening day and night.
The numbers
For added context, consider the ever-changing Auschwitz death toll.
- 1945: Soviet Extraordinary State Commission claimed 4 million deaths.
• 1946: Rudolf Höss' testimony at the Nuremberg Trial claimed 3 million total deaths.
• 1945-1990: Memorial plaques at Auschwitz displayed 4 million deaths.
• July 1990: Memorial plaques changed to 1.5 million deaths.
• 1991-1994: Franciszek Piper's studies claimed 1,1 million deaths.
• Current gas guess: Approximately 1.1 million deaths.
The reduction from 4 million to just over 1 million represents a 72% decrease in the official death toll at Auschwitz since 1945.
In other words, what is the actual number?
Pick a number out of a hat.
Backlash
After releasing the film, David faced severe hatred and death threats, particularly from the Jewish Defence League, a group that ironically did not protect him despite his Jewish identity.
The pressure was so extreme that he temporarily 'changed his name' to David Stein.
This kind of hostility towards David’s work shows exactly why topics like this must be discussed openly rather than censored or suppressed. Silencing voices through threats or intimidation blocks the pursuit of truth. A free society requires that all historical claims, no matter how sensitive, be open to scrutiny and debate to ensure accuracy and understanding are not lost to fear or dogma.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
— George Orwell, British novelist
On his 'name change'
In early August 2025, roughly three and a half years after the podcast recording below, David sent me the following message on X:
Out of respect, I replied that I’d update my website as I wasn’t aware of any of this. However, I’m unsure about what is and isn’t true, especially considering the following from the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust:
David Christopher Cole (born in 1968), who used the name David Stein between 1998 and 2013, became (in)famous in 1992 when he recorded a video showing how the Auschwitz Museum lies to visitors about the alleged authenticity of its "gas chamber" exhibit. He subsequently received death threats from Jewish terrorist groups, after which he formally retracted his revisionist views. He next changed his name and thus disappeared from public view, until his then girlfriend blew his cover in 2013. He has subsequently resumed expressing some of his revisionist positions, albeit in a more moderate fashion.
Perhaps there's a game of semantics at play here—technically, he didn't legally change his name, but rather created a pseudonym to use for safety.
I don't know.
Strange series of events
Finding his documentary David Cole in Auschwitz is very challenging because, as it turns out, he is actively trying to erase it from the internet.
Why?
In early March 2026, I received the following email from David:
What manner of bullshit is this, Jeremy? You know what's true because I told you what's true. This is my life and nobody knows it better than I. “CODOH” is run by Germar Rudolf, a man I met one time in Stuttgart in 1994. Why would you think he has any insights into my life? More to the point, in the U.S. name changes are public record; that's the law. You can ALWAYS provide evidence that someone changed their name. Neither Germar nor anybody who's made the idiotic claim that I “changed my name” has ever provided one shred of evidence.
So please either provide evidence that I “changed my name,” or ask Germar to provide evidence, or erase that stupid, unwarranted paragraph.
And now I gotta do this as well: you uploaded my 1992 Auschwitz video in full. I'm invoking my copyright and requesting that you remove the video. You can upload “fair use” clips, that's fine. But as the sole copyright holder, I'm asking for that full upload to be removed. Don't take it personally; I get that piece of VHS junk removed wherever I see it.
Germar Rudolf has been on my podcast, and it was a fascinating conversation about Zyklon B and whether it can be used to kill large numbers of people.
Jerm
I had previously uploaded David's full film, but I've taken it down and replaced it with the following shortened version:
And here is an interview he did on the The Montel Williams Show soon after the release of his film:
Something happened, causing David to make an apparent 180-degree turn. Was he threatened again? Was he bought?
He's now aggressively trying to remove the film from anywhere and everywhere.
Within hours of his demand to take down the film, I received the following email:
He labels me a 'Holocaust denier', yet it's his film that denies the Holocaust.
I wonder if David understands irony.
However, history is what it is—and attempting to remove it will likely only trigger the Streisand effect.
It's worth watching, if you can find it.
My conversation with David
David spoke to me about his background and the documentary, explaining why he made it and describing the significant backlash he faced.
I recorded this with substandard gear in 2021, which explains the poor quality.
