Holocaust denial

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This article is about the history, development, and methods of Holocaust denial. For an examination of the arguments of Holocaust denial, see Examination of Holocaust denial.

Holocaust denial, or Holocaust revisionism as it is referred to by its supporters (and by others pejoratively to describe them when criticising their work), is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur as it is described by mainstream historiography. Key elements of this belief are the explicit or implicit rejection that, in the Holocaust:

  • The Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews, people of Jewish ancestry, and the Gypsies for extermination as a people;
  • Over five million Jews<ref>Donald L Niewyk, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." Estimates by scholars range from 5.1 million to 7 million. See the appropriate section of the Holocaust article.</ref> were systematically killed by the Nazis and their allies.
  • Tools of efficient mass extermination, such as gas chambers, were used in extermination camps to kill Jews.

In addition, most Holocaust denial implies, or openly states, that the current mainstream understanding of the Holocaust is the result of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy created to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples. For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. Because of this, Holocaust denial is also illegal in a number of European countries, as their governments hold that it is motivated by an anti-Semitic and anti-democratic agenda.

Holocaust Deniers themselves do not accept the term as an appropriate term to describe their point of view, preferring the term "Holocaust Revisionism" instead. They are nevertheless commonly labeled as "Holocaust deniers" or "negationists" to differentiate them from historical revisionists by those who consider their goal to be not historical inquiry using evidence and established methodology, but rather to try to prove that the Holocaust did not exist, regardless of historical evidence.<ref>Berger, p 154</ref>

Contents

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Terminology: Holocaust denial or Holocaust revisionism?

The term "denier" (also but less often in English "negationist"<ref>Negationism is the denial of historic crimes. The word is derived from the French term Le négationnisme, which refers to Holocaust denial.</ref>) is objected to by the people to whom it is applied, who prefer "revisionist," though most scholars contend that the latter term is deliberately misleading.<ref>Omer Bartov, The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation and Aftermath, Routledge, p.12</ref> While historical revisionism is the re-examination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and less-biased information, "deniers" have been criticised for seeking evidence to support a preconceived theory, omitting substantial facts. Broadly, historical revisionism is the approach that history as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate and should hence be revised accordingly. Historical revisionism in this sense is a well-accepted and mainstream part of history studies, and it is applied to the study of the Holocaust as new facts emerge and change our understanding of it.

Holocaust "deniers" maintain that they apply proper revisionist principles to Holocaust history, and therefore the term Holocaust revisionism is appropriate for their point of view. Their critics, however, disagree and prefer the term Holocaust denial. Historian Gordon McFee writes in his essay "Why 'Revisionism' Isn't":

"Revisionists" depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology […], thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head." <ref> Gord McFee, Holocaust History Project, Why Revisionism Isn't</ref>

In general, the term Holocaust denial fits the description at the beginning of this article, while the term Holocaust revisionism is ambiguous, in theory ranging from Holocaust denial to standard historical techniques applied to examine aspects of the Holocaust that have been understudied. However, because the latter term has become associated with Holocaust deniers, mainstream historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves. Though they do not use the term revisionism, historians do, of course, continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust, though no reputable historian has challenged the basic scale and outlines of the event. In the words of historian Donald Niewyk from Southern Methodist University: "With the main features of the Holocaust clearly visible to all but the willfully blind, historians have turned their attention to aspects of the story for which the evidence is incomplete or ambiguous. These are not minor matters by any means, but turn on such issues as Hitler's role in the event, Jewish responses to persecution, and reactions by onlookers both inside and outside Nazi-controlled Europe." <ref>Niewyk, 1992</ref>

Despite the best attempts of some to make a distinction between the terms Holocaust denial and Holocaust revisionism, the jailing of the discredited self-taught historian<ref name="DI_author">Richard Ingram Irving was the author of his own downfall in The Independent 25 February 2006: In 1969, after David Irving's support for Rolf Hochhuth, the German playwright who accused Winston Churchill of murdering the Polish wartime leader General Sikorski, The Daily Telegraph issued a memo to all its correspondents. "It is incorrect," it said, "to describe David Irving as a historian. In future we should describe him as an author."</ref> David Irving in Austria in February 2006 shows that the British news media frequently use the term revisionist when referring to a Holocaust deniers. <ref>The British news media use of the term revisionist as well as denial:

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Beliefs of Holocaust Deniers

Holocaust deniers make the following claims, though not all Holocaust deniers make all of the claims listed<ref>Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it? University of California Press</ref>:

  • Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews. Small chambers did exist for delousing and Zyklon-B was used in this process.
  • Nazis did not use cremation ovens to dispose of extermination victims. The amount of energy required to fire the ovens far exceeded what the energy-strapped nation could spare in wartime. The cremation ovens that existed would have been too small for this purpose and the reason there were cremation ovens at all was they were put in to provide cremation services for the deaths from natural causes and disease epidemics that could reasonably be expected in a high-density work camp.
  • The figure of 5-6 million Jewish deaths is an irresponsible exaggeration, and many Jews who actually emigrated to Russia, Britain, Palestine and the United States are included in the number.
  • Many photos and much of the film footage shown after World War II was specially manufactured as propaganda against the Nazis by the Allied forces. For example, one film, shown to Germans after the war, of supposed Holocaust victims were in fact German civilians being treated after Allied bombing of Dresden. Pictures we commonly see show victims of starvation or typhus, not of gassing.
  • Claims of what the Nazis supposedly did to the Jews were all intended to facilitate the Allies in their intention to enable the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and are currently used to garner support for the policies of the state of Israel, especially in its dealings with the Palestinians.
  • Historical proof for the Holocaust is falsified or deliberately misinterpreted.
  • There is an American, British or Jewish conspiracy to make Jews look like victims and to demonize Germans. Also, it was in the Soviet interest to propagate wild stories about Germany in order to frighten related nations into accepting Soviet rule (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.). The amount of money pumped into Israel and reparations from Germany alone give Israel a strong incentive to maintain this conspiracy.
  • The overwhelming number of biased academics and historians are too afraid to actually admit that the Holocaust was a fiction; they know they will lose their jobs if they speak up.
  • In any event, the Holocaust pales in comparison to the number of dissidents and Christians killed in Soviet gulags, which Holocaust deniers usually attribute to Jews.

Additionally, two other common claims of Holocaust deniers are easily confused with the legitimate debate of functionalism versus intentionalism:

  • Although crimes were committed, they were not centrally orchestrated and thus the Nazi leadership bore no responsibility for the implementation of such a policy.
Documents such as the Wannsee Conference protocols, the Einsatzgruppen reports, and many other original materials have overwhelmingly demonstrated the centralized planning and knowledge of the Holocaust by most upper echelons of the Nazi leadership. Historians continue to debate how widespread the knowledge of the Holocaust was in German society and government, and how the decisions to implement the Final Solution evolved, but the centrally-planned nature of the Holocaust, and the role of the Nazi leadership in its planning and execution, has not been subject to any doubt by scholars or historians.
While to date no such specific "Führerbefehl" has been found, there is no necessity for it to exist in order to establish that Hitler was aware of the Holocaust. In addition, particularly in the context of the Wannsee Conference, it has been proven that the upper echelons of the Nazi regime did indeed give orders that resulted in the Holocaust.
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Holocaust denial examined

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Holocaust denial is widely viewed as unreasonable because it fails to adhere to rules for the treatment of evidence, rules that are recognized as basic to rational inquiry. The prevailing consensus among the informed is that the evidence given by survivors, eye witnesses, and historians is overwhelming, that it proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Holocaust occurred, and that it occurred as they say it occurred. It is unreasonable to ask these claimants to prove that their evidence is "really real" any more than they already have, unless there is some particular demonstrably credible reason for thinking that it is suspect. If Holocaust deniers would like to cast doubt on this evidence, the burden of proof shifts to them, and they will have a very high standard to meet. In the meantime, Holocaust denial will continue to be recognized as an unreasonable position.

The existence and nature of the Holocaust was well-documented by the heavily bureaucratic German government itself. It was further witnessed by the Allied forces who entered Germany and its associated Axis states towards the end of World War II. Among the evidence produced was film and stills of the existence of prisoner camps, as well as the testimony of those freed when the camps were entered. The Holocaust was a massive undertaking that lasted for years across several countries, with its own command and control infrastructure, which left a large trail of documentation. Although the Nazis made attempts to destroy the evidence of the Holocaust when they could see that their defeat was imminent, substantial documentation remained. After their defeat, many tons of documents were recovered, and many thousands of bodies were found not yet completely decomposed, in mass graves near many concentration camps. The physical evidence and the documentary proof included numerous reports written by the Nazis about the number of Jews killed, records of train shipments of Jews to the camps, orders for tons of cyanide and other poisons, photographs, films, and the remaining concentration camp structures themselves. Thousands of interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders added to the level of documentation around the Holocaust.

Thus, there is little debate among scholars as to whether the Holocaust occured, or to its magnitude, and much of the controversy surrounding the claims of Holocaust deniers centers upon the methods used to present arguments that the Holocaust allegedly never happened. Numerous accounts have been given (including evidence presented in court cases) of claimed "facts" and "evidence"; however, independent research has shown these claims to be based upon flawed research, biased statements, and even deliberately falsified evidence. Opponents of Holocaust denial have compiled detailed accounts of numerous instances where this evidence has been altered or manufactured (see Nizkor Project and David Irving). Evidence presented by Holocaust deniers has also failed to stand up to scrutiny in courts of law (see Fred A. Leuchter), further questioning its veracity.

As Holocaust denial is not considered to be historical research by almost all scholars, there has been a substantial debate on the right way to respond to deniers. Since the contentions of Holocaust denial — that the Holocaust did not happen — are contradicted by a deep historical record, many scholars worry that to debate Holocaust denial is to make it appear a legitimate field of inquiry.<ref>Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan, International Handbook of Violence Research, Springer: 2003</ref>

A second group of scholars, typified by Lipstadt, have tried to raise awareness of the methods and motivations of Holocaust denial, while trying not to legitimize the deniers themselves. Lipstadt explained her goals:

We need not waste time or effort answering the deniers' contentions. It would be never-ending to respond to arguments posed by those who freely falsify findings, quote out of context and simply dismiss reams of testimony. Unlike true scholars, they have little, if any, respect for data or evidence. Their commitment is to an ideology and their 'findings' are shaped to support it.<ref>Deborah Lipstadt, 1992 interview with Ken Stern of the American Jewish Committee</ref>

A third group, typified by the Nizkor Project, responds by confronting Holocaust denial head-on, debunking the arguments and false claims of Holocaust denial groups.

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History of Holocaust denial

Research into Holocaust Denial has revealed that anti-Semitism has been an important part of the revisionist philosophy since the very beginnings of the movement. With few exceptions, charges of anti-Jewish bias have been leveled against many deniers over the years – charges that they have rarely rejected.

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Early examples

Scholars credit the very first Holocaust deniers as the Nazis themselves. Historians have documented evidence that Heinrich Himmler instructed his camp commandants to destroy records, crematoria and other signs of mass extermination of human beings, as Germany's defeat became imminent and the Nazi leaders realized they would most likely be captured and brought to trial. Following the end of World War II, many of the former leaders of the SS left Germany and began using their propaganda skills to defend their actions (or, their critics contended, to rewrite history). Shortly after the war, denial materials began to appear. For example, an early proponent of Holocaust denial was Francis Parker Yockey, an American admirer of Hitler whose book Imperium, a purported "philosophy of history and politics" filled with anti-Semitic analysis, was published in 1962.<ref>Martin Perry, Anti-Semitism, Palgrave: 2002</ref>

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The case of Harry Elmer Barnes

Also eventually taking a Holocaust denial stance in the later years of his life was Harry Elmer Barnes. Barnes is an unusual case because he was at one time a mainstream historian with liberal credentials. Between World War I and World War II, Barnes became well known as an anti-war writer and a leader in the historical revisionism movement. Following World War II, however, Barnes became convinced that allegations made against Germany and Japan to justify U.S. involvement in WWII were merely wartime propaganda that needed to be debunked. He later began including the Holocaust in this category in his writings. Barnes' anti-war and mainstream historical revisionist writings are still held in high regard by some libertarians. Following the example of Barnes, a few other early libertarian writers also concerned with anti-war historical revisionism began to take a Holocaust denial stance, including James J. Martin. Most libertarians, even those who otherwise hold Barnes' writings in high regard, reject his Holocaust denial.<ref>Phyllis B Gerstenfeld, Diana R Grant, Crimes of Hate. Sage Press, 2003, p 191</ref> Barnes' name has since been appropriated by some modern Holocaust deniers in an attempt to lend credibility to their cause, most notably Willis Carto.

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The beginnings of the modern movement

Image:KKK holocaust a zionist hoax.jpg The beginnings of modern-day Holocaust denial are somewhat obscure. Public challenges to the historical accounts of the holocaust first began to appear in the 1960s, with French historian Paul Rassinier publishing The Drama of the European Jews in 1964. Rassinier was himself a Holocaust survivor (he was imprisoned in Buchenwald for his socialist beliefs), and modern-day revisionists continue to cite his works as scholarly research that questions the accepted facts of the Holocaust. Critics and opponents of revisionism, however, note that Rassinier's own anti-Semitic views influenced his viewpoint and that Buchenwald was not a death camp, so his argument that he saw no gassings there was unsurprising. While Rassinier did not cite evidence for his claims, and ignored information that contradicted his assertions, he remains influential in Holocaust denial for being one of the first deniers to propose that a vast Zionist/Allied/Soviet conspiracy faked the Holocaust, a theme picked up by other authors.<ref>Deborah E. Lipstadt, History on Trial, Harcourt:2005 [ISBN 0060593768]</ref>

A prominent early Holocaust denier was the American historian David Hoggan, who wrote a book in 1961 called the Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War), which was primarily concerned with the origins of World War Two, but also down-played or justified the effects of Nazi anti-Semitic measures in the pre-1939 period. Subsequently, Hoggan wrote one of the first books denying the Holocaust in 1969 entitled The Myth of the Six Million, which was published by the Noontide Press, a small Los Angles based publisher noted for specializing in anti-Semitic literature. Because of Hoggan had a number of professorships at prestigious universities, he became one of the early stars of the Holocaust denial movement.

The Holocaust denial movement grew into full strength in the 1970s with the publication of Arthur Butz' The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The case against the presumed extermination of European Jewry in 1976 and David Irving's Hitler's War in 1977. These books, seen as the basis of much of the deniers' arguments, brought other similarly inclined individuals into the fold.<ref>Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory 1994</ref>

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Institute for Historical Review

In 1979 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was founded by the neo-Nazi Willis Carto as an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the "myth of the Holocaust." The IHR sought from the beginning to attempt to establish itself within the broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III, and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes to attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a broader base of support besides just neo-Nazis. The IHR brought most of Barnes' writings, which had been out of print since his death, back into print. However, most of IHR's supporters were neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, and while IHR included token articles on other topics and sold some token books by mainstream historians in its book catalog, the vast majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust.<ref>Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Basic Books, 2002 (ISBN 0465021530).</ref>

The IHR became one of the most important organizations devoted to Holocaust denial. In recent years the IHR underwent an internal power struggle which ousted Willis Carto. Under the subsequent leadership of Mark Weber, the IHR has taken on an even more explicit neo-Nazi orientation than it had under Carto. Carto went on to found the Barnes Review magazine after his ousting from IHR, a magazine which is also devoted to Holocaust denial.

In recent published articles, volunteer organizations monitoring hate groups have stated that Holocaust denial groups, such as the IHR, have been having difficulty finding supporters (and especially financial sponsors) in the United States. As a result, spokespersons for the IHR and other denial groups have been travelling to the Middle East in an attempt to forge closer ties with extremist groups there. IHR spokespersons have been reported to have met with persons suspected of involvement with terrorist groups. <ref>Kevin Coogan, HITLIST April/May 2002, Berkeley CA, USA[1]</ref>

In an "About the IHR" statement on their website, the IHR makes the claim that "The Institute does not 'deny the Holocaust'," though they explicitly deny many of the elements of the mainstream view of the Holocaust, calling them a "hoax," as stated in the IHR journal:

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.<ref>Journal for Historical Review, 1993, 13, 5, p. 32</ref>

Commentators have noted the misleading nature of statements by the IHR that they are not Holocaust deniers. For example, in The San Francisco Express, Paul Raber described a revisionist "word game":

The question [of whether the IHR denies the Holocaust] appears to turn on IHR's Humpty-Dumpty word game with the word Holocaust. … According to Mark Weber [the Director of IHR], … "If by the `Holocaust' you mean the political persecution of Jews, some scattered killings, if you mean a cruel thing that happened, no one denies that." … That is, IHR doesn't deny that the Holocaust happened; they just deny that the word "Holocaust" means what people customarily use it for.<ref>Paul Raber, San Francisco Express, January 17, 1992, page 4.</ref>
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Bradley Smith and CODOH

Bradley Smith is the founder of a group called the "Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust". CODOH was founded in 1987. In the United States, CODOH has repeatedly tried to place newspaper ads questioning whether the Holocaust happened, especially in college campus newspapers. These ads typically cause a stir on each campus, whether or not they are actually run in the campus newspaper. Some newspapers have accepted the ads, some have rejected them. No matter which decision the editors make, most papers run an editorial defending their decision either on free speech grounds or on the grounds that Smith's views are repugnant and rightfully kept out of the newspaper. During the early 1990s, CODOH's ad campaign attracted national controversy after many campus newspapers accepted the ads. This action became the subject of editorials in major newspapers such as The New York Times. Since 2000, CODOH's newspaper ad campaign has fallen into inactivity because most campus papers (with a few exceptions) reject the ads as a matter of course. Attempts to place the ads no longer generate the controversy they once did. Bradley Smith has more recently sought other avenues to promote Holocaust denial with little success.

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R. v. Keegstra

In 1984, James Keegstra, a Canadian high-school teacher was charged with denying the Holocaust and making anti-semitic claims in his classroom as part of the course material. Keegstra and his lawyer, Doug Christie, argued that the section of the Criminal Code (now section319{2}), is an infringement of the Charter of Rights (section 9{b}). The case was appealed to the Supreme court of Canada, where it was decided that the law he was convicted under did infringe on his freedom of expression, but it was a justified infringement. Keegstra was convicted, and fired from his job.

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The Zündel trials

Former Canadian resident Ernst Zündel operated a small-press publishing house called Samisdat Publishing, which published and distributed Holocaust-denial material such as Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (a/k/a Richard Verrall - a British neo-Nazi leader). In 1985, he was tried and convicted under a "false news" law and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court for "disseminating and publishing material denying the Holocaust." Zündel gained considerable notoriety after this conviction, and a number of free-speech activists stepped forward to defend his right to publish his opinion. His conviction was overturned in 1992 when the Supreme Court of Canada declared the "false news" law unconstitutional.

Zündel established his own Web site to publicize his viewpoints. In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a ruling in a complaint involving his website, found contravening the Canadian Human Rights Act. The court ordered Zündel to cease communicating hate messages. In February 2003, the INS arrested him in Tennessee on an immigration violations matter, and few days later, Zündel was sent back to Canada, where he tried to gain refugee status. Zündel remained in prison until March 1, 2005, when he was deported to Germany; under whose laws he could be prosecuted for disseminating hate propaganda.

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Ken McVay and alt.revisionism

In the mid-1990s, the popularity of the Internet brought new international exposure to many organizations, including Holocaust deniers and other groups. A number of authority figures stated publicly that the Internet allowed hate groups to introduce their messages to a widespread audience, and it was feared that Holocaust denial would gain in popularity as a result. But this was not the case, largely due to the efforts of Ken McVay and the participants in the Usenet newsgroup alt.revisionism.

McVay, a Canadian resident, was disturbed by the efforts of organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center to suppress the speech of the Holocaust deniers. On alt.revisionism he began a campaign of "truth, fact, and evidence," working with other participants on the newsgroup to uncover factual information about the Holocaust and counter the arguments of the deniers by proving them to be based upon misleading evidence, false statements, and outright lies. He founded the Nizkor Project to expose the activities of the Holocaust deniers, who responded to McVay with personal attacks and slander. McVay received a number of death threats, and the Nizkor Project soon became the number-one online foe of many Holocaust deniers, some of whom were neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

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David Irving and the Lipstadt Affair

In 1998, then best-selling British self-taught historian<ref name="DI_author"/> David Irving filed suit against American author Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books, claiming that Lipstadt had libeled him in her book Denying the Holocaust. The statements made by Lipstadt included the accusation that Irving deliberately twisted and misrepresented evidence to conform to his ideological viewpoint. Under English libel law, which seeks primarily to protect the reputation of an individual, Lipstadt and her publisher bore the full burden of demonstrating not only that they had not shown "reckless disregard" for the truth (as would be the case in America), but also that the statements made were true (that Irving had denied the Holocaust, and that the Holocaust had, in fact, happened).

Lipstadt and Penguin hired British lawyer Anthony Julius and Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans to present her case. Evans spent two years examining Irving's work, and presented evidence of Irving's misrepresentations, including that Irving had knowingly used forged documents as a source. One of the few witnesses called on Irving's behalf was American evolutionary psychology professor Kevin B. MacDonald. The presiding judge, Charles Gray, was persuaded by the evidence presented by Evans and others and wrote a long and decisive verdict in favor of Lipstadt, calling Irving a "right-wing pro-Nazi polemicist," and confirming the accusations of Lipstadt and Evans.<ref>Lipstadt, History on Trial</ref>

In 2006, Irving pleaded guilty to the charge of denying the Holocaust in Austria, where Holocaust denial is a crime and where an arrest warrant was issued based on speeches he made in 1989. Irving knew that the warrant was issued and that he was banned from Austria, but chose to come to Austria anyway. After he was arrested, Irving claimed in his plea that he changed his opinions on the Holocaust, "I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now," Irving told the court. "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews." Upon hearing of Irving's sentence, Lipstadt said, "I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don't believe in winning battles via censorship… The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth." <ref>BBC Report Holocaust Denier is Jailed, February 20, 2006</ref>.

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Other recent trends

In France, Holocaust denial has become more prominent in the 1990s as "negationism," though the movement has existed in ultra-left French politics since at least the sixties, led by figures such as Pierre Guillaume (who was involved in the bookshop La Vieille Taupe during the 1960s). Recently, elements of the extreme far left and extreme far right in France have begun to build on each others' negationist arguments, which often span beyond the Holocaust to cover a range of anti-Semitic views, incorporating Marxist critiques of "Jewish capitalists," attempts to tie the Holocaust to the Biblical massacre of the Canaanites, critiques of Zionism and other material fanning what has been called a "conspiratorial Judeo-phobia" designed to legitimize and "banalize" anti-Semitism.<ref>Richard Joseph Golsan, Vichy's Afterlife, University of Nevada Press, 2003, p 130</ref>

Recently the terms Holocaust industry and Shoah business, have come into vogue among those who believe Jewish leaders use the Holocaust for financial and political gain. The term Holocaust industry comes from the title of a book by Norman Finkelstein, a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors. He fully accepts the fact that the Holocaust occurred, but believes that its memory is being dishonestly exploited. However, his term has also been picked up by Holocaust deniers who believe the Holocaust was faked for the purpose of financial and political gain, although that usage is much less frequent. Finkelstein's work is rejected by much of the mainstream Jewish community as well as many scholars.<ref>See, for example, Omer Bartov, A Tale of Two Holocausts. Review of The Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein. New York Times Book Review 6 Aug. 2000</ref>

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In the Muslim world

Image:Spielberg holocaust denial ael.jpg Holocaust denial is relatively new to the Muslim world, as Kenneth Jacobson, assistant national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview with Haaretz: "Adopting the theories of Holocaust denial of Western scholars is a relatively new phenomenon in the Muslim world. The accepted attitude had been to say that whereas it was true the Holocaust had taken place, the Palestinians should not have to pay the price. A look at Ahmadinejad's statements shows he has mixed the two approaches."<ref>Amiram Barkat, "Iran pledges to finance Hamas-led Palestinian government", Haaretz</ref>

Since 1960s, the Soviet Union promoted the allegation of secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist leadership. The thesis of 1982 doctoral dissertation of Mahmoud Abbas, a co-founder of Fatah and one of the leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization who earned his Ph.D. in history at the Oriental College in Moscow, was "The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement"<ref>Was Abu Mazen a Holocaust Denier? By Brynn Malone (History News Network)</ref><ref>Abu Mazen: A Political Profile. Zionism and Holocaust Denial by Yael Yehoshua (MEMRI) April 29, 2003</ref> In his 1983 book The Other Face: The Secret Connection Between the Nazis and the Zionist Movement, based on the dissertation, Abbas wrote:

"It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand." <ref>A Holocaust-Denier as Prime Minister of "Palestine"? by Dr. Rafael Medoff (The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies)</ref><ref>Abu Mazen and the Holocaust by Tom Gross</ref><ref>PA Holocaust Denial by Itamar Marcus (Palestinian Media Watch)</ref><ref>Can Israel survive if it does not defend itself? by Francisco Gil-White (Historical and Investigative Research)</ref>

In his March, 2006 interview with Haaretz Abbas stated:

"I wrote in detail about the Holocaust and said I did not want to discuss numbers. I quoted an argument between historians in which various numbers of casualties were mentioned. One wrote there were 12 million victims and another wrote there were 800,000. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgiveable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it." <ref>Interview with Mahmoud Abbas by Akiva Eldar, Haaretz. March 30, 2006</ref>

In recent times, Holocaust denial has grown rapidly in Muslim countries. In the Middle East, individuals from the Syrian and Iranian government, as well as Palestinian political groups (Hamas) have published and promoted Holocaust denial statements <ref>Jewish Virtual Library, MEMRI, ICT.</ref> Denials of the Holocaust have been regularly promoted by various Arab leaders and in various media throughout the Middle East. <ref>ADL on Holocaust Denial, MEMRI</ref> In August 2002 the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, an Arab League think-tank whose Chairman, Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, promoted a Holocaust denial symposium in Abu Dhabi. [2] Hamas leaders have also promoted Holocaust denial; Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi held that the Holocaust never occurred, that Zionists were behind the action of Nazis, and that Zionists funded Nazism. A press release by Hamas in April 2000 decried "the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis" <ref>Washington Institute for Middle East Peace, 2000</ref>

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Ahmadinejad and Iran

In a December 2005 speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the Holocaust was "a myth" that had been promoted to defend Israel, ramping up his rhetoric and triggering a fresh wave of international condemnation. "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," he said. He also called for Israel to be relocated to Germany, or Austria, arguing it was these nations that persecuted the Jews, so they should carry the responsibility, not Palestinians forsaking their land to form a state of Israel. He also suggested relocating Israeli Jews to the USA. <ref> CNN, Iranian leader: Holocaust a 'myth'</ref> The remarks instantly provoked a firestorm of international controversy as well as swift condemnation from government officials in Israel, Europe, and the United States. All six political parties in the German parliament signed a joint resolution condemning this Holocaust denial. [3] Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal called Ahmadinejad's remarks "courageous" and declared that "...Muslim people will defend Iran because it voices what they have in their hearts, in particular the Palestinian people." <ref>Al Jazeera, "Hamas springs to Iran's defence"</ref> In the United States, the Muslim Public Affairs Council condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks.<ref>Muslim Public Affairs Council</ref> Recently, it has been reported that Ahmadinejad is inviting well-known Holocaust deniers, most notably Robert Faurisson, to speak at a conference to "examine the Holocaust."

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Public reactions to Holocaust denial

Recently, a number of public figures and scholars have increasingly spoken out against Holocaust denial. The Holocaust Research Center director Dr. William Shulman described the denial "…as if these people were killed twice." <ref>Sophia Chang Times Ledger, December 16, 2004</ref>, a sentiment echoed by literary theorist Jean Baudrillard, who argued that "Forgetting the extermination is part of the extermination itself."<ref>Golsan, 130</ref> In 2006, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: "Remembering is a necessary rebuke to those who say the Holocaust never happened or has been exaggerated. Holocaust denial is the work of bigots, we must reject their false claims whenever, wherever and by whomever they are made." <ref>BBC News, Annan condemns Holocaust denial, January, 2006</ref>

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Laws against Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is illegal in ten European countries: France (Loi Gayssot), Belgium (Belgian Negationism Law), Switzerland (article 261bis of the Penal Code), Germany, Austria (article 3h Verbotsgesetz 1947), Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Poland; it is also illegal in Israel. Many of these countries also have broader laws against libel or inciting racial hatred, as do a number of countries that do not specifically have laws against Holocaust denial, such as Canada and the United Kingdom. The Council of Europe's 2003 Additional Protocol to the Convention on cybercrime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems includes an article 6 titled Denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or crimes against humanity, though this does not have the status of law.

Of the countries that ban Holocaust denial, half (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, and Slovakia) were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and many of these also ban other elements associated with Nazism, such as Nazi symbols. Additionally, scholars have pointed out that countries that specifically ban Holocaust denial generally have legal systems that limit speech in other ways, such as banning hate speech. In the words of D. Guttenplan, this is a split between the "common law countries of the US, Britain, and former British colonies from the civil law countries of continental Europe. In civil law countries the law is generally more prescriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as interpreting it"<ref>D D Guttenplan, Should Freedom of Speech Stop at Holocaust Denial?, Index of Free Expression, 2005.</ref>

Many Holocaust deniers claim their work falls under a "universal right to free speech", and see these laws as a confirmation of their own beliefs, arguing that the truth does not need to be legally enforced. Some people who do not deny that the Holocaust occurred nevertheless oppose such restrictions of free speech, including, despite her legal battle with David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt. Another prominent opponent of the laws is Noam Chomsky. An uproar resulted when Serge Thion used one of Chomsky's essays without explicit permission as a foreword to a book of Holocaust denial essays. See: Criticism of Noam Chomsky. At times, Holocaust deniers seek to rely on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, when faced with criminal sanctions against their statements or publications. The European Court of Human Rights however consistently declares their complaints inadmissible. According to Article 17 of the Convention, nothing in the Convention may be construed so as to justify acts that are aimed at destroying any of the very rights and freedoms contained therein. Invoking free speech to propagate denial of crimes against humanity is, according to the Court's case-law, contrary to the spirit in which the Convention was adopted in the first place. Reliance on free speech in such cases would thus constitute an abuse of a fundamental right.

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Other genocide denials

Other acts of genocide and atrocity have met similar attempts to deny and minimize. The list of these acts is extensive and proof is often difficult to obtain, either because governments are involved in the denial or because there is debate on whether the occurred atrocities are genocide or not. For example, Ward Churchill, a controversial scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Gypsies and to marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

Some other examples are:

  • The toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao was higher than the toll of the Second World War in China but could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence.
  • the Nanjing Massacre (1937) by the Japanese army, which many Japanese politicians, such as Ishihara Shintaro, have denied happened;
  • The Armenian Genocide by Turkey is denied by the Turkish government. Although some Turkish writers are being persecuted for going against the state's official standpoint concerning the massacre, the situation might change complexion in the coming years, mainly as a result of Turkey's attempt to join the European Union;
  • The Ustaše genocide by Croats, who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs in WWII in Jasenovac and other places, was denied by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and by many people in present day Croatia.
  • The mass-killings organized by the Khmer Rouge in Democratic Kampuchea (today Cambodia), now almost universally regarded as genocide, were sometimes denied or minimized by contemporary commentators, primarily on the political left. Critics of Noam Chomsky accuse him of doing so (1, 2). Chomsky's position was based largely on his prior objections to the Khmer Rouge's opponents, whom he considered imperialists (see argumentum ad hominem). Chomsky now refers to what happened in Cambodia as a genocide (see Criticism of Noam Chomsky).
  • The Indonesian genocide in East Timor during its occupation of the country between 1975 and 1999. The figure of 200 000 dead, first put forward by the Catholic Church in East Timor in 1982, accounted for nearly a third of the original population of nearly 700 000. This figure was rejected by the Indonesian government as an exaggeration [4], as was the figure of 180 000 in a report by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation [5] in January 2006.
  • The Bosnian Genocide by Bosnian Serbs is still denied by most Serbs and others although it has gained acceptance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) through the court case entitled Prosecutor vs Krstic (see Srebrenica Massacre).

Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch lists denial as the final stage of a genocide development: "Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims."<ref>Gregory Stanton, Eight Stages of Genocide Denial, Genocide Watch</ref>

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Notes

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References

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About Holocaust deniers

  • Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Basic Books, 2002 (ISBN 0465021530). As well as the story of the Irving case, this is an excellent case study on historical research.
  • Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994. Debunking Holocaust revisionism.
  • Donald L. Niewyk, ed. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.
  • Robert Jan Van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. ISBN 0253340160
  • Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it? University of California Press ISBN 0520234693
  • Mr. Death, a documentary by Errol Morris.
  • "Syrian Holocaust Denial" by Mohammad Daoud, Syria Times September 6 2000, retrieved November 08 2005
  • "Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in the Iranian Media" MEMRI Special Dispatch Series no 855, January 28 2005, retrieved November 08 2005
  • "Palestinian Holocaust Denial" Reuven Paz, Peacewatch 21 April 2000, retrieved November 08 2005
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By Holocaust deniers

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External links

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Websites denying the Holocaust or parts thereof

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Reports on and criticisms of Holocaust deniers

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Satire on the modes of argumentation employed by Holocaust deniers

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Audio testimony of Holocaust survivors

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