Holocaust Denier Assaults Elie Wiesel

[Nick Terry]

As we get further and further away from the actual event and less of the survivors are still living, the attack on history will increase. The recent conference in Iran is probably the ignition point for much of the current debate and IMO it will last until Hitler's Birthday this year than die out again until next year.

I disagree. The current cycle began in 2005 with the first statements by Ahmadinejad which were juxtaposed with the arrest of David Irving, and the deportations of Zuendel and Rudolf back to the Fatherland.

The entire discussion now revolves largely around issues of free speech. Deniers' arguments are routinely rejected by the mainstream media, even as their right to offend is defended in Germany, Britain and the US alike. The denial 'movement' is minuscule and shrinking in terms of active output. There may well be a few thousand more woos who have become converts through exposure to one or another media story, but that's about it. Deniers' Google and YouTube contributions get hits in the low thousands, not the millions as with the Loosers.

I think the Ahmadinejad-Iran connection will prove in the medium term fatal for Holocaust deniers, as Kiwiwriter argued above. It has irrevocably branded the movement with the taint of pandering to foreign powers.

This backfiring happens pretty much every time a politician dips their toe into those rancid waters. Le Pen caused 'revisionism' to be directly and fatally associated in France with the extreme right, when it had in fact a more broad-based origins on both left and right before 1987. Three years later revisionism in France was gutted by the loi Gayssot which with less than 50 court cases since 1990 has annihilated French revisionism as a meaningful enterprise, the birthplace of the whole charade. That includes repeat offenders such as Faurisson, by the way.

 

[Nick Terry]

Yes, that's what I'm afraid of too. And especially now with the internet, who knows how badly History is going to suffer from these nuts. How are our kids and grand kids going to differenciate between good and bad information? That's a frightening thought.

Just look at 9/11 and how it's being distorted, and it's just been 6 years!

Kudos for Spielberg and the like who gather the last remaining testimonies of the Holocaust survivors.

I think panic is premature on this. Sure, there will be those who are vulnerable to the indistinction of internet sourcing, but I think increasingly the educational system will have to correct for this, maybe not always with success, but the bottom line is that critical thinking remains the ultimate gatekeeper. Teaching students about the distinction between good and bad sources, how to approach sources, how to apply logic, and how to research properly are all things that are done fairly routinely in many different disciplines. These days it's a near-automatic fail to cite Wikipedia in an undergraduate essay. That sends a powerful signal not to place excessive trust in the internet.

 

[CptColumbo]

I disagree. The current cycle began in 2005 with the first statements by Ahmadinejad which were juxtaposed with the arrest of David Irving, and the deportations of Zuendel and Rudolf back to the Fatherland.

The entire discussion now revolves largely around issues of free speech. Deniers' arguments are routinely rejected by the mainstream media, even as their right to offend is defended in Germany, Britain and the US alike. The denial 'movement' is minuscule and shrinking in terms of active output. There may well be a few thousand more woos who have become converts through exposure to one or another media story, but that's about it. Deniers' Google and YouTube contributions get hits in the low thousands, not the millions as with the Loosers.

I think the Ahmadinejad-Iran connection will prove in the medium term fatal for Holocaust deniers, as Kiwiwriter argued above. It has irrevocably branded the movement with the taint of pandering to foreign powers.

This backfiring happens pretty much every time a politician dips their toe into those rancid waters. Le Pen caused 'revisionism' to be directly and fatally associated in France with the extreme right, when it had in fact a more broad-based origins on both left and right before 1987. Three years later revisionism in France was gutted by the loi Gayssot which with less than 50 court cases since 1990 has annihilated French revisionism as a meaningful enterprise, the birthplace of the whole charade. That includes repeat offenders such as Faurisson, by the way.

That may be true in the UK and the rest of Europe, but we didn't hear much about David Irving on the NA continent, and Ahmadinejad's statements were noted, but (in the US anyway) there was more discussion of him being a member of the group that invaded the US embassy and took hostages in the late 70s. The deportations of Zuendel and Rudolf were, as far as I know, not exactly headline news over here either.

I hope that Ahmadinejad's conference does give a negative face to the deniers.

 

[Nick Terry]

That may be true in the UK and the rest of Europe, but we didn't hear much about David Irving on the NA continent, and Ahmadinejad's statements were noted, but (in the US anyway) there was more discussion of him being a member of the group that invaded the US embassy and took hostages in the late 70s. The deportations of Zuendel and Rudolf were, as far as I know, not exactly headline news over here either.

I hope that Ahmadinejad's conference does give a negative face to the deniers.

All of the above refers to what makes the internet 'news' on discussion boards. The fact that virtually none of this is given extensive mainstream media attention of course lowers the exposure level even further. In Britain, David Irving's release made the top of the BBC bulletin on a slow news day, on the radio. Where it came on TV I have no idea.

The Tehran conference was a step too far for the denial movement; the condemnation of both Iran and deniers was essentially universal, and while there will always be a few thousand lunatics who take a contrarian view, the overwhelming majority of people who pay attention to such matters will have drawn an obvious conclusion: that Holocaust denial is a political tool of Islamists now.

It's hard to imagine that anyone who is at least semi-educated has not heard of the fact that there are a few kooks who deny gas-chambers and genocide. They've had 60 years to make their case. They've failed resolutely. The idea has not caught on.

Frankly the biggest failing is down to the Germanophile contingent. The idea that Hitler was an all round standup guy is so ludicrous that anyone espousing it marks themselves out as a loon. Again, there will always be a small minority who are attracted to Hitler-kissing for contrarian reasons. Deniers attack the Holocaust partly in order to absolve the Nazi regime of what they see as its biggest crime, but fail to recognise that there were so many other crimes that an informed, educated individual is not going to be convinced by the special-pleading they engage in. The denial is not just of the Holocaust, but of Hitler and the Holocaust.

What is left is to corrall this minority off intellectually and logically, in much the same way that people here debunk idiocies from the Loosers and other woos.

The poor performances of the few kamikaze deniers who post on here shows just how inept they generally are.

 

[Kiwiwriter]

Good points, but...

Originally Posted by CptColumbo View Post
As we get further and further away from the actual event and less of the survivors are still living, the attack on history will increase. The recent conference in Iran is probably the ignition point for much of the current debate and IMO it will last until Hitler's Birthday this year than die out again until next year.

Pardalis:
Yes, that's what I'm afraid of too. And especially now with the internet, who knows how badly History is going to suffer from these nuts. How are our kids and grand kids going to differentiate between good and bad information? That's a frightening thought.

Just look at 9/11 and how it's being distorted, and it's just been 6 years!

Kudos for Spielberg and the like who gather the last remaining testimonies of the Holocaust survivors.

Both of you are making good points, and while I agree with Nick Terry in his answers, I also agree with both of you.

I think the key point here is that it is dangerous to become complacent or to assume that because the truth of the Holocaust is so well-documented and so powerful, and that the nature of its deniers is so appalling and revolting, the truth will take care of itself through sheer osmosis or inertia.

However, the truth must be fought for and protected. I liken the battle against Holocaust deniers to the work of sanitation departments in cities around the world. Every day, they pick up the trash. Every day, the trash buckets are full again. It would seem a pointless struggle. But if the trash is not picked up for one day...one week...one month...disaster ensues in the form of diseases and filth.

So the deniers are not going to give up. They have two important causes to grind: the rehabilitation of Hitler and the demonization of the Jews. Regardless of their limited numbers and limited impact, their potential for causing pain and chaos is unending. Buford Furrow, Tim McVeigh, Matthew Hale, Tom Metzger, have much to answer for. This is more than a battle for memory, for what a textbook will say, what a museum exhibit will show, what a child will be taught.

It's a battle against against the glorification of sadism.

 

[JimBenArm]

Both of you are making good points, and while I agree with Nick Terry in his answers, I also agree with both of you.

I think the key point here is that it is dangerous to become complacent or to assume that because the truth of the Holocaust is so well-documented and so powerful, and that the nature of its deniers is so appalling and revolting, the truth will take care of itself through sheer osmosis or inertia.

However, the truth must be fought for and protected. I liken the battle against Holocaust deniers to the work of sanitation departments in cities around the world. Every day, they pick up the trash. Every day, the trash buckets are full again. It would seem a pointless struggle. But if the trash is not picked up for one day...one week...one month...disaster ensues in the form of diseases and filth.

So the deniers are not going to give up. They have two important causes to grind: the rehabilitation of Hitler and the demonization of the Jews. Regardless of their limited numbers and limited impact, their potential for causing pain and chaos is unending. Buford Furrow, Tim McVeigh, Matthew Hale, Tom Metzger, have much to answer for. This is more than a battle for memory, for what a textbook will say, what a museum exhibit will show, what a child will be taught.

It's a battle against against the glorification of sadism.

My wife and I have taken a proactive approach to this with our daughters. I know the deniers are out there, and the neo-nazi movement may not be (or ever will be) that big, but people need to know what happened, how vile it was, and how loathesome the deniers are. We have discussed WWII history with them, watched "Shindler's List" and other movies on the holocaust with them, answered their questions, and made sure we didn't sugar-coat it.
These slimeballs need to be shown to the world as what they are, often and vigourously. They are the lowest of the low.

 

[gumboot]

Yes, that's what I'm afraid of too. And especially now with the internet, who knows how badly History is going to suffer from these nuts. How are our kids and grand kids going to differenciate between good and bad information? That's a frightening thought.

Just look at 9/11 and how it's being distorted, and it's just been 6 years!

Kudos for Spielberg and the like who gather the last remaining testimonies of the Holocaust survivors.

I really don't see why this is so surprising.

The annuals of history are full of events that have been grossly distorted over time. I see no reason why current events won't meet the same fate.

Unless the west sorts its act out, in the next century either China or some sort of Islamic pan-national state will become the new global Superpower. And like all superpowers before them they will rewrite history to suit their needs.

-Gumboot

 

[ktesibios]

I'd like to suggest an addition to Kiwiwriter's list of questions.

6A. Of the defendants who were charged at the first Nuremberg trial with crimes against humanity, not a single one attempted in his own defense to assert that the mass murder of millions of people by the Nazis didn't happen.

Each tried to evade or minimize his personal responsibility for these crimes, but not a single one, nor a single defense lawyer, tried to deny that the crimes had been committed at all.

Why would that be?

6B. Besides the IMT trial of Nazi bigwigs, many other trials of people accused of complicity in Holocaust crimes have taken place. Some were held by the victorious Allies, some by nations victimized by the Nazis and some by the postwar German judicial system. The defendants have ranged from important people to bottom-level concentration camp personnel.

Is there any record of any of these defendants denying the reality of the crimes in their defense?

If not, why not?

 

[Peephole]

You have repeatedly insulted people, including myself, by ascribing motives and jumping to conclusions when it is clear you fail to comprehend simple statements, the point of the CT forum, and this forum in general.

It's just something you don't do when Germans are around.