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An eye opening piece regarding Holocaust denial

Cello Man

Graduate Poster
Cello Man
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Sep 7, 2006
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...dec16,0,2351518.story?coll=la-home-commentary

This interesting piece is by a Somali who emigrated to Holland. To sum up: Not only were they fed constant anti-Semitic propaganda in their homeland, but the author didn't even hear of the Holocaust until they moved to Holland at 24.

from the article:
I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.
Click to expand...
Discuss.
 
Cello Man said:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...dec16,0,2351518.story?coll=la-home-commentary

This interesting piece is by a Somali who emigrated to Holland. To sum up: Not only were they fed constant anti-Semitic propaganda in their homeland, but the author didn't even hear of the Holocaust until they moved to Holland at 24.

from the article:
Discuss.
Click to expand...
Growing up in America, I heard next to nothing about the Armenian slaughter at the hands of the Turks, nor did I hear about the scourging of Serbs by the Croatian Ustasi.

Does that mean that the US is filled with deniers of those two historical events?

I learned of them both after I graduated from college, as I studied European geopolitics in detail on my own time. (Mechanical Engineering doesn't concern itself much with genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc. Maybe Mech Engrs can help those obsessed with these historical events is to build a bridge, so they can get over it. :p )

DR
 
This is why I think Holocaust deniers aren't just having a different opinion, or just being skeptical. They are deliberately promoting a hateful ideology. That is criminal. They shouldn't be allowed to continue. :mad:
 
I’m not understanding the point of view of the sister. “The holocaust didn’t happen but I wish it did?” What’s that about? Going through the mental contortions needed to deny the holocaust while thinking it would be a good idea doesn’t make any sense to me. Wouldn’t you be saying “Hooray for the Holocaust” or something? Why is the holocaust something you would want to deny?
 
Random said:
I’m not understanding the point of view of the sister. “The holocaust didn’t happen but I wish it did?” What’s that about? Going through the mental contortions needed to deny the holocaust while thinking it would be a good idea doesn’t make any sense to me. Wouldn’t you be saying “Hooray for the Holocaust” or something? Why is the holocaust something you would want to deny?
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The "reasoning" (to sully that word) goes something like "The Jews made up the Holocaust to further their Zionist aims of founding a nation in 'Palestine'", therefore if the Holocaust did not happen they have no right to have been "given" "Palestine" as their nation.

(And please don't tell explain to me that doesn't make sense - of course it doesn't!)
 
Random said:
I’m not understanding the point of view of the sister. “The holocaust didn’t happen but I wish it did?” What’s that about? Going through the mental contortions needed to deny the holocaust while thinking it would be a good idea doesn’t make any sense to me. Wouldn’t you be saying “Hooray for the Holocaust” or something? Why is the holocaust something you would want to deny?
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That's what I wonder (not) when I see Arab newspaper cartoons showing Israelis as Nazis.

I can't quite wrap my brain around it: The Nazis were evil because they murdered millions of people, but they're not evil because they didn't murder millions of Jews, which must make them evil because Arabs hate the Jews... So, the Nazis and the Jews were secretly buddy-buddy?

I'd be terribly confused by all this (because Arabs are no stupider than anyone else, AFAIK), if I didn't keep one simple thought in mind: They don't believe the Holocaust was a myth. If you accept that it really happened, then the logic of a cartoon of Ariel Sharon as a fanged, blood-drinking Nazi makes perfect sense, if you're trying to make the point that today's Jews are just as bad as their Nazi persecutors 60 years ago.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Growing up in America, I heard next to nothing about the Armenian slaughter at the hands of the Turks, nor did I hear about the scourging of Serbs by the Croatian Ustasi.
Click to expand...

Neither did I ever hear about the Turks and Armenians. Nor did I hear about the Rape of Nanking until 5 years ago. I am peripherally aware of the Serbs and Croats, but I have few details. Frankly, I just know it was genocide, or an attempt at it.

Does that mean that the US is filled with deniers of those two historical events?
Click to expand...

When I read that, I thought "That would mean a conspiracy on such a vast scale, and for so long a duration, it would be very close to impossible."

I can't imagine every teacher I ever had deliberately conspiring to keep this information away from me, some dumb Okie from Tulsa. But I don't know why I didn't hear of these things until college, just in the last five years. I even remember having a social studies unit on Japan in the 7th grade. I don't remember discussing anything horrific aside from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and at 13, I found those horrific enough.

But I had never really thought about there being anyone in the world who wasn't at least aware of the Holocaust itself. I guess that amazes me as much as finding out there are people who know nothing about Nanking surprises the Chinese.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Growing up in America, I heard next to nothing about the Armenian slaughter at the hands of the Turks, nor did I hear about the scourging of Serbs by the Croatian Ustasi.

Does that mean that the US is filled with deniers of those two historical events?

I learned of them both after I graduated from college, as I studied European geopolitics in detail on my own time. (Mechanical Engineering doesn't concern itself much with genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc. Maybe Mech Engrs can help those obsessed with these historical events is to build a bridge, so they can get over it. :p )

DR
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The problem here is that they are smaller events and also not connected with the US. I learned much more about things as they relate to the US in school than about how the armenians and turks interrelate, or much at all about turkeys internal politics.

There are just so many crimes in history to learn about, how can you expect people to know them all?
 
Pardalis said:
This is why I think Holocaust deniers aren't just having a different opinion, or just being skeptical. They are deliberately promoting a hateful ideology. That is criminal. They shouldn't be allowed to continue. :mad:
Click to expand...

This is parody? It's nice to occasionally get some reducto ad absurdum going the other direction.
 
BPSCG said:
That's what I wonder (not) when I see Arab newspaper cartoons showing Israelis as Nazis.

I can't quite wrap my brain around it: The Nazis were evil because they murdered millions of people, but they're not evil because they didn't murder millions of Jews, which must make them evil because Arabs hate the Jews... So, the Nazis and the Jews were secretly buddy-buddy?

I'd be terribly confused by all this (because Arabs are no stupider than anyone else, AFAIK), if I didn't keep one simple thought in mind: They don't believe the Holocaust was a myth. If you accept that it really happened, then the logic of a cartoon of Ariel Sharon as a fanged, blood-drinking Nazi makes perfect sense, if you're trying to make the point that today's Jews are just as bad as their Nazi persecutors 60 years ago.
Click to expand...

I suggest you take some time and read a few threads in the "Conspiracy Theory" section before you assume duplicity - it is jaw dropping what contradictions and illogic people can not only believe in but actively support.
 
ponderingturtle said:
There are just so many crimes in history to learn about, how can you expect people to know them all?
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You have just set the ground for what is observed regarding the Arabs in the article: why would they care about dead Jews, dead Europeans, dead European Jews, and dead Americans? They might then argue in a follow on: what is so special about dead Jews (or dead Rwandans) that everyone has to know, and most importantly, care about it?

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
Growing up in America, I heard next to nothing about the Armenian slaughter at the hands of the Turks
DR
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Nor did we hear in grade school that Armenians concocted the story of an exaggerated slaughter event for political gain.

"It wasn't on our radar" does not equal "It never happened"
 
Out of curiosity how many people were taught about the Holocaust in school (not college and beyond)? Certainly when I was in school (late seventies early eighties) it wasn't part of any history curriculum.
 
Darth Rotor said:
You have just set the ground for what is observed regarding the Arabs in the article: why would they care about dead Jews, dead Europeans, dead European Jews, and dead Americans? They might then argue in a follow on: what is so special about dead Jews (or dead Rwandans) that everyone has to know, and most importantly, care about it?

DR
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But their is a difference between ignorance and denial.
 
Darat said:
Out of curiosity how many people were taught about the Holocaust in school (not college and beyond)? Certainly when I was in school (late seventies early eighties) it wasn't part of any history curriculum.
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I didn't learn about it in school either. The first time I learned about it is when I saw the film " Night and Fog" on television.
 
Darat said:
I suggest you take some time and read a few threads in the "Conspiracy Theory" section before you assume duplicity - it is jaw dropping what contradictions and illogic people can not only believe in but actively support.
Click to expand...
Been there, done that, decided other people enjoyed arguing with them a lot more than I did, and abandoned the field.

Thing is, the September 11 CT'ers are a fringe, wacko group (in this country, anyway). Holocaust denial is widespread, it's mainstream, in the Muslim middle east. Finding a few fringe wackos to support a conspiracy theory, any conspiracy theory, is easy. But when entire societies embrace one...
 
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