The terms "Holocaust denier" and "Holocaust denial" are often objected to by the people to whom they are applied. These people typically prefer "revisionist" and "revisionism".[4] Scholars believe that term to be misleading, however.[5] While historical revisionism is the re-examination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, or less-biased information, deniers seek evidence to support a preconceived theory, omitting substantial facts.[10]
Historical revisionism is an academic approach that holds that a given slice of 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. A very different process unfolds when someone proceeds from the premise that a major element of human history is simply inaccurate, and ignores or routinely minimizes evidence that conflicts with that premise. History done in this way is not revisionism, but denial.[11]
Because the term "revisionist" has become associated with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves, though they continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust. In the words of historian Donald Niewyk of 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."[12]
Holocaust denial is sometimes referred to as "negationism", from the French term Le négationnisme, introduced by Henry Rousso.[13] Negationists attempt to rewrite history by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts. According to Jacques Derrida:
"Generally speaking, 'revisionism' in history is the attempt to critique established dogmas, a critique that can in no way be included in with the type of negationism that attempts to deny the reality of acknowledged facts."[14]
According to Koenraad Elst:
"Negationism means the denial of historical crimes against humanity. It is not a reinterpretation of known facts, but the denial of known facts. The term negationism has gained currency as the name of a movement to deny a specific crime against humanity, the Nazi genocide on the Jews in 1941-45, also known as the holocaust (Greek: fire sacrifice) or the Shoah (Hebrew: disaster). Negationism is mostly identified with the effort at re-writing history in such a way that the fact of the Holocaust is omitted."[15]