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I initially thought this poll was kind of worthless but it has yielded an interesting result. More than 85% of the respondents say they don't know enough or care enough about holocaust denial to participate in a holocaust denial discussion but they know it's wrong anyway. I wonder how these eighty five percenters would define the holocaust and how many of them can tell us what it is about the holocaust that the "deniers" actually "deny" and why they "deny" it?
As one of the 85% I'll chime in on this.
I do not consider my self to be an active participant in the thread for a number of reasons:
a. I do not post in it that often; and
b. My personal historical knowledge of this time period is of a broad nature and tends to be more focussed on family contributions to WWII, and to my regimental history and national history, so while aware of the broad historical events - I am not as aware of individual events surrounding the Holocaust as
I am of my father-in-law's participation in the liberation of Holland with le Regiment de Maisonneuve, or with the activities of 2nd Bty, 4 RCA from Sept 3, 1939 to May 8, 1945 - and much of the discussion gets more specific than I can meaningfully contribute to.
I am aware of the anti-Jewish laws passed by the Reich, having an interest in the events leading to WWII and these laws being part of the legislative and historical record. I am aware of the legal events of the post war trials, having researched the Nuremberg trials while examining Canadian War Crimes legislation during my university days.
I would define the Holocaust as a series of events promulgated by Nazi Germany to initially marginalize Jews (based on an extreme form of anti-semitism), and later eliminate them from Germany. Prior to the war the nazis limited themselves to harassment and intimidation and marginalization as a PR measure, and during the war ramped up their efforts to carry out the extreme ideas put out in
Mein Kampf (nasty book - extremely hard to read) and eliminate from the German state and it's conquered territories those that Hitler had deemed to be unworthy of life - Jews, gypsies, communists, socialists, freemasons, political opponents, etc. The policies did not shift over night, and did were not implemented wholeheartedly everywhere, because the myth of German efficiency and adherence to orders from on high is just that "a myth" - the sheer number of organizations competing for resources in Germany belaying any contention that the Germans were efficient. A
At the end of the war the scope of the nazi crimes became evident and where possible, the architects of those crimes where made to pay, the enablers made to accept what they had allowed to go on in their name, and the rest of us get to live with the knowledge of the depths that we can sink to if we give our hatred free reign.
The Deniers seem to be the ones that refuse to accept that these events occurred, or seek to diminish the horror of what happened, either due to their own prejudices or for their own political agendas. The ignorant can be taught, the willfully blind, not so much.
