Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the claim that the Holocaust did not happen or was not as bad as people think it was. Historians agree that during World War II, the Nazis killed millions of people during the Holocaust, including many people in concentration camps.
They agree that there is more proof in writing, pictures, and places about the Holocaust than any other great killing of people.
Overview
changeHolocaust deniers
changeHolocaust deniers usually call themselves Holocaust revisionists.[1] They say that the Holocaust is a hoax that was made up by Jewish people working together.[2][3] It is against the criminal law to deny the Holocaust in Israel and in many European countries, especially in Germany.[4] Some Holocaust deniers, like Ernst Zündel, have been charged with crimes.
Prominent Holocaust deniers
changeName | Birth | Death | Origin | Affiliations |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ali Khamenei[5] | April 19, 1939 | Mashhad, Iran | Supreme Leader of Iran[5] | |
David Irving[6] | March 24, 1938 | Hutton, Essex, England | A "historian" who is an alumnus of the ICL and UCL[6] | |
Hutton Gibson[7][8] | August 26, 1918 | May 11, 2020 | Peekskill, New York, United States | Founder of the Opus Dei[7][8] |
Paul Rassinier[9] | March 18, 1906 | July 28, 1967 | Bermont, France | A French Resistance fighter who survived Nazi concentration camp[9] |
Pierre Guillaume[10] | December 22, 1940 | July 11, 2023 | France | An anarcho-Marxist[10] |
Richard Williamson[11] | March 8, 1940 | Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom | Society of Saint Pius X[11] | |
Robert Faurisson[12] | January 25, 1929 | October 21, 2018 | Shepperton, England | University of Lyon professor of literature |
Holocaust denial claims
changeCommon arguments
change- They say the Nazi government was only trying to deport Jews, not to kill all of them. They say there was no official Nazi policy to kill Jews, and that no Nazi leader ever gave an order to kill all of the Jews.[3][13]
- They say the Nazis did not use death camps or gas chambers to kill Jews.[2][3]
- History experts agree that the Nazis killed about 5 million to 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.[2][3] Holocaust deniers say that far fewer Jews actually died. They also claim that many of these victims died of diseases, like typhus, instead of being murdered by the Nazis.[2][3]
Other arguments
change- They say that during World War II, the Allies made up fake stories about the Holocaust to make Germans look evil. Then, Jews, working together, spread these fake stories as part of a bigger plan to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Now, Jews continue to spread these stories to get sympathy and to get support for the state of Israel.[2][3]
- They say that evidence about the Holocaust is fake.[2][3]
- They say there are errors and differences in stories told by Holocaust survivors and so the stories cannot be believed.[2][3]
- They say that after being taken prisoner, many Nazis gave confessions about having committed war crimes. Holocaust deniers say these people said things that were not true because they were tortured.[2][3]
- They say the allies treated enemy prisoners of war just as badly as the Nazis treated the Jews.[2][3]
Rebuttal to Holocaust denial
changeHistorians agree that the Holocaust happened and that Holocaust deniers use bad research, get things wrong, and sometimes make facts up to support their claims.[2][3]
Many things together prove that the Holocaust did happen:
- Written documents, like laws, newspaper articles, speeches made by Nazi leaders, and confessions from Nazi prisoners of war. The Nazis kept careful records, and many of them still exist. Even during World War II, many Germans knew about the Holocaust, and some tried to help save Holocaust victims
- Eyewitness testimony from people who saw what the Nazis did. That includes Holocaust survivors, like people who survived the Nazi concentration camps, and the word of Jewish Sonderkommandos (concentration camp inmates who helped load bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoria because this gave them a chance to survive). It also includes the word of Nazi leaders, Nazi concentration camp guards, and Allied soldiers who discovered the camps
- The camps. Pieces of Nazi concentration camps, death camps, and work camps still exist
- Other evidence, like population statistics
Related pages
changeOther websites
change- Holocaust Denial on Trial: Using History to Confront Distortions Emory University
- Holocaust Denial and DistortionArchived 2013-02-25 at the Wayback Machine United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
References
change- ↑ Lipstadt, Deborah, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Penguin, 1993, ISBN 0-452-27274-2, p. 25
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Mathis, Andrew E. Holocaust Denial, a definition Archived 2011-06-09 at the Wayback Machine, The Holocaust History Project, July 2, 2004, Retrieved 6 March 2013
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman. Denying History: : who says the Holocaust never happened and why do they say it?, University of California Press, 2000, ISBN 0-520-23469-3, p. 106
- ↑ Bazyler, Michael J. (December 25, 2006). "Holocaust Denial Laws and Other Legislation Criminalizing Promotion of Nazism" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1
- "Statement on Holocaust Denial Conference Sponsored by Iranian Regime". George W. Bush White House Archives. December 12, 2006. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
- Küntzel, Matthias (2012). "Judeophobia and the Denial of the Holocaust in Iran". Holocaust Denial. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110288216.235. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
- "Holocaust Denial and Distortion from Iranian Government and Official Media Sources, 1998–2016". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). 2016. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
- "At the Paris Olympics, Iran is leading the antisemitism charge". New York Post. July 30, 2024. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
- Abramson, Scott (August 19, 2024). "The Iranian regime is not its people". Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). Retrieved December 23, 2024.
The Iranian people are the most pro-American and least antisemitic population in the region.
- Ghorbanpour, K. (December 4, 2024). "Opinion | Is Iran an Antisemitic 'Nazi Regime'?". Haaretz. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1
- Evans, Richard J (2002). Telling lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, history and the David Irving trial. Verso. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
- Schonfeld, Gustav (2010). "Holocaust denial". Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association. 121 (104). Retrieved December 30, 2024.
- "David Irving". Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Retrieved December 30, 2024.
David Irving was once treated with great respect for his historical tomes on World War II and Nazi Germany. But in recent years, the writer has become known as the world's most prominent Holocaust denier.
- "David Irving". Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Retrieved December 30, 2024.
- "Deniers in different countries". Auschwitz-Birkenau. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "What is Opus Dei, and why is it so controversial — both in and out of the Catholic Church?". Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). January 30, 2023. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 McDermott, Jim (January 13, 2023). "Mel Gibson and the dangers of Catholic antisemitism". American Magazine. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Reid, Donald (March 29, 2022). "Holocaust denial, Le Vicaire, and the absent presence of Nadine Fresco and Paul Rassinier in Jorge Semprún's La Montagne blanche". French Cultural Studies. 33 (3). doi:10.1177/09571558221078450. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
Open access
- ↑ 10.0 10.1
- Finkielkraut, Alain; Kelly, Mary Byrd (1998). The Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803220003. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- Golsan, Richard J. (2000). Vichy's Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France. Dallas, Texas, United States: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803270941. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- Atkins, Stephen E. (April 30, 2009). Holocaust Denial as an International Movement (1 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9780313345388. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1
- "Pope to cancel excommunication of rebel bishops | The Pope is expected to cancel the excommunication of four breakaway bishops including a Briton who has said the Nazis did not use gas chambers". The Telegraph. London, United Kingdom. January 22, 2009. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
- "Catholic Bishop Williamson Unrepentant in Holocaust Denial". ABC News. February 1, 2020. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
- "Seminary sacks 'Holocaust bishop' | An ultra-traditionalist British bishop who denies the Holocaust has been removed from his post as the head of a Roman Catholic seminary in Argentina". BBC News. February 9, 2009. Archived from the original on 3 October 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
- Willan, Philip (January 25, 2009). "Pope readmits Holocaust-denying priest to the church | Vatican lifts excommunication on renegade British bishop who declared: 'There were no gas chambers'". The Independent. London, United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 24 November 2018. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
- "Bishop Richard Williamson". Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Retrieved December 5, 2024.
- ↑
- Shields, James G. (1991). "France: French revisionism on trial: The case of Robert Faurisson". Patterns of Prejudice. 25 (1): 86–88. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1991.9970068. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
Published online: 28 May 2010
- Ivry, Benjamin (May 30, 2012). "Denying Robert Faurisson". The Forward. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- Berman, Paul (April 26, 2018). "The Grand Theorist of Holocaust Denial, Robert Faurisson". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- Cohen, Ben (October 26, 2018). "Robert Faurisson: The liar and his legacy". Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- Shields, James G. (1991). "France: French revisionism on trial: The case of Robert Faurisson". Patterns of Prejudice. 25 (1): 86–88. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1991.9970068. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- ↑ Mathis, Andrew E. Holocaust Denial, a Definition, The Holocaust History Project, July 2, 2004, Retrieved 6 March 2013