Holocaust+Denial

**HOLOCAUST DENIAL **Holocaust denial is the claim that the genocide enacting on the Jews during World War ll did not occur to the extent that most scholars say it did.   In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over 9 million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War ll. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution", the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Unfortunately, there has been widespread denial of this travesty of mankind. The earliest attempts at Holocaust denial was done by the Nazi's themselves. As early as 1945 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, visited camps under the impression that someday there would be an attempt to cover up these travesties of mankind, and he wanted to have a first hand testament. __ The movement gained substance in 1978 when Willis Carto founded the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which was an organization that was dedicated to publicly challenging the commonly accepted history of the Holocaust. The IHR is a pseudo-acedemic enterprise in which professors with no credentials in history, writers without formal certification and career anti-semites convene to find new outletsw for their anti-Jewish beliefs.
 * When and Where: **__

The IHR vehemently refutes the notion that they "deny" the holocaust, saying:

"There is no dispute over the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported to concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed during World War II. Revisionist scholars have presented evidence, which "exterminationists" have not been able to refute, showing that there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration. The Holocaust — the alleged extermination of some six million Jews (most of them by gassing) — is a hoax and should be recognized as such by Christians and all informed, honest and truthful men everywhere."




 * Who are the Victims and Victimizers? **

 The victims of the Holocaust denial are those who survived the Holocaust and have to live with the terrors that they underwent on a daily basis. These people tell their war stories to the world with the hope that we can prevent this sort of mass termination in the future, and yet the ignorance of certain individuals who believe the "myth" of the Holocaust is a way for the world to sympathize with the Jews.

It makes you wonder, what would they say if they underwent what these people did?



Among the biggest deniers in modern times is Iranian President Ahmadinajad, who famously said in a December 2005 speech:

 "They have fabricated a legend, under the name Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves...If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."

 On December 11, 2006, the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" opened to widespread condemnation. The conference, called for by and held at the behest of Ahmadinejad, was widely described as a "Holocaust denial conference" or a "meeting of Holocaust deniers" though Iran insisted it was not a Holocaust denial conference. A few months before it opened, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi stated: "The Holocaust is not a sacred issue that one can't touch. I have visited the Nazi camps in Eastern Europe. I think it is exaggerated."

Here is the man himself: media type="youtube" key="ykd-syzZ4ZY" height="344" width="425"

 These are the major international participants in the denial:

 Why?  The deniers' basic belief is that the "myth" of the Holocaust is a way for "organized world Jewry" to gain sympathy and financial support for the Zionist cause and to render themselves immune from criticism. Furthermore, the deniers also claim that Hitler did not even want war and did not order the extermination of the Jews in Europe. These are main points of the deniers' "big lie." One of the Major tenet of the deniers' philosophy is that there is a moral equivalence between the wartime actions of the Allies, which may have resulted in civilian deaths, such as the bombing of Dresden (so it goes), and atrocities committed by the Nazis. It is similar to the comparison a few make between a legal execution and a murder during a robbery. One of the most prominent American "revisionist" historians, Harry Elmer Barnes claimed that: "...the atrocities of the Allies in the same period were more numerous as to victims and were carried out for the most part by methods more brutal and painful than alleged extermination in gas ovens ..."

<span style="display: block; font-size: 250%; text-align: center; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> Effects/International Response: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> Many scholars refuse to even engage Holocaust deniers or their arguments at all, feeling that in so doing they would give Holocaust deniers unwarranted legitimacy.

A second group of scholars, typified by the likes of Deborah Lipstadt, have tried to raise awareness of the methods and motivations of Holocaust deniers while not legitimizing their arguments.

Lipstadt has stated, "We need not waste time or effort answering the deniers' contentions. It would be never ending... Their commitment is to an ideology and their 'findings' are shaped to support it."

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI reinstated a Bishop who has gone on record denying the Holocaust, effectively creating an uproar in the Jewish community. In an attempt to diffuse the situation the Pope stated, "any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable." He went on to say, "the hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Holocaust was a crime against humanity. This should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures."

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> And here's a video!: media type="youtube" key="BLOSsjG6Zyg" height="344" width="425"

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> Today, TV show and radio hosts, in their efforts to gain better ratings, try to convey "both sides of the story" by inviting both Holocaust survivors (or historians) and Holocaust deniers to explain themselves on their programs. The problem with this idea is that the Holocaust did happen. There is no "other side" to the issue. The very fact that the radio-TV host invites the denier to the show in order to debate the issues opposite a survivor or a bona-fide historian gives the deniers' revisionist beliefs undeserved legitimacy and publicity.

As the amount of survivors become fewer and fewer, there will be fewer sources of primary information about the Holocaust in the world. Furthermore, the essence of truth vested with the eyewitness', will no longer prevail. They will no longer be able to impress future generations with the horrors of Nazi genocide. It is hard to conceive whether or not the Holocaust denial movement could further its influence. However, it is up to the vigilance of authentic historians and serious scholars to prevent its spread by educating the general public on how to separate fact from fiction and valid historical interpretation from the "revisionist" propaganda. We hope that future generations of discerning individuals will realize that the deniers' diatribes are used not only to discredit the Holocaust victims, but also to tarnish the veracity of eyewitness accounts.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">"...A proposition which can be proved by evidence is not subject to dispute, denial or rejection; no one but the ignorant would contradict it, and such contradiction is called 'denial of demonstrated proof.' Facts are only doubted by those who ignore things fully proved."

- Moses Maimonides

It is our job to remember the Holocaust, and the memory of all those who perished between the years 1933 to 1945. Letting these revisinoist historians into our culture will only distort our memories and minimize the impact of the Holocaust. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">