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In Belgium it's criminal to question the holocaust?

geni said:
Israel is not in europe. You will note that your list does not include the Eruopean contries of UK, Spain, Italy,Portugal, Poland, Norway, denmark and sweaden etc.
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Look, Israel was in the middle of the quote I found. Give me a break. Besides, as I said, I was just doing a quickie search out of curiosity, not trying to prove a point. If I did sit down and research a comprehensive list, is there anyone here who would thank me for it? Or even read it? Or remember it tomorrow? What would be the point?

PS. If you're going to be anal about it, it's spelled "Sweden," and with a capital "S." And "Denmark" has a capital "D." If you're going to criticize...
 
Could the law be explained by being encompassed in anti-libel laws? To deny the basic facts of the matter is to accuse a hell of a lot of people of not only lying but conspiring to cover up the truth... i.e., to accuse many people of committing a crime.

I also wonder if proving one's claim to be true is a valid defense against the charge.
 
Beady said:
PS. If you're going to be anal about it, it's spelled "Sweden," and with a capital "S." And "Denmark" has a capital "D." If you're going to criticize...
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Precision, gentlemen.

Carry on.
 
waitew said:
The fact that the 'truth' of the holocaust has to be 'protected' from questioning only makes me more suspecious that it either didn't happen or is greatly exagerated!
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This is one of the reasons I like free speech, because restricting speech tends to do these kinds of things to people.

Forgive me, moderators, but I think these laws are mostly to do with the desire on the part of Europeans to walk around like their ◊◊◊◊ doesn't stink.

As for the holocaust, the number of civilians killed was probably closer to 10 million (2 million POWs, 2 million non-Jewish others including blacks, Gypsies, the mentally ill, etc.). So if anything it's minimized rather than exaggerated.
 
geni said:
5.6 – 6.1 million Jews
200 000 – 800 000 Roma & Sinti
200 000 – 300 000 handicapped
10 000 – 25 000 homosexuals
2 000 Jehovah's Witnesses
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Being an old geezer and since I spend a lot of time in used bookstores I have read books on the holocoust from many eras. I remembered something funny about the numbers of people killed. The plaque at Aucshwitz that memorlizes these numbers has been changed from 4 million to I belive something like 2 million. Why didn't the overall numbers changed? Did those people die somewhere else?

I did a google and here is one page with photos:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/Auschwitz/Nemeth220104.html




There is also the fact that over the years the details of how these people were gassed has changed. Now perhaps this is only in popular liteture, maybe serious historians new what really happened all along. The fact is though that as far as I can tell the original 'gas from the showerheads' scenario is not very workable. The story I see now is the Zyklon B from the ceiling scenario. This one seems a lot more workable but how did the original showerhead version become so widely belived? And did mainstream historians defend it or did they agree that it was not the way the Nazis killed people?
 
It's a criminal offence in most European countries to deny that the Nazis had a systematic policy to exterminate Jews as well as gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally and physically handicapped. It is also an offence to deny that millions of Jews in particular were killed as part of that policy.

It is not an offence to question all of the above. It is an offence to claim that those events are did not happen or were substantially exaggerated.
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I'm not a Haulocaust dennier, but that confuses me. It's okay to question them, as long as your questioning doesn't lead you to the wrong answer? Or as long as you don't express the answer you come to? For all intents and purposes, isn't that the same as not allowing you to question it?
 
Gregory said:
I'm not a Haulocaust dennier, but that confuses me. It's okay to question them, as long as your questioning doesn't lead you to the wrong answer? Or as long as you don't express the answer you come to? For all intents and purposes, isn't that the same as not allowing you to question it?
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I think there is significant distinction for legal purposes between asking a question, and making a claim.

For example, a "question" that might be as good as a claim, could also be asked by someone studying the phenomenon of holocaust revisionism or addressing it.
 
AWPrime said:
Yes they were killed in many camps. Aucshwitz is just the largest place of death.
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Birkenau was considerably larger. (But OK, it was right next to Auschwitz....)
 
AWPrime said:
Yes they were killed in many camps. Aucshwitz is just the largest place of death.
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So originally it was belived that four million had been killed at Aucwitz and a plaque was erected to that effect. Then later the number was revised downward because it was realised some of the Auchwitz deaths occured somewhere else? So at the time the Auchwitz numbers were revised down the numbers elsewhere were revised up?

I have never read that explanation before.
 
valis said:
There is also the fact that over the years the details of how these people were gassed has changed. Now perhaps this is only in popular liteture, maybe serious historians new what really happened all along. The fact is though that as far as I can tell the original 'gas from the showerheads' scenario is not very workable. The story I see now is the Zyklon B from the ceiling scenario. This one seems a lot more workable but how did the original showerhead version become so widely belived? And did mainstream historians defend it or did they agree that it was not the way the Nazis killed people?
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This is pretty easy to figure out. The prisoners were lead to what they were told were showers. They got into the showers and they were gassed. The gassing happened in the showers, so people who heard about it later thought it was from the shower heads.
 
valis said:
So originally it was belived that four million had been killed at Aucwitz and a plaque was erected to that effect. Then later the number was revised downward because it was realised some of the Auchwitz deaths occured somewhere else? So at the time the Auchwitz numbers were revised down the numbers elsewhere were revised up?

I have never read that explanation before.
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The Nizkor Project is an excellent source.
 
I think most of us here are agreen that during the war millions of people - Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Russians, Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many others were systematically killed for being what they were.
After the war there was a backlash against National Socialism that continues to this day. I can't sell Nazi memorabilia in certain European countries. If you show a swastika on Ebay the item stands a fair chance of being removed. You can't give a Nazi salute in some countries.
I guess in some ways it's hard for some Americans to understand - and this isn't a criticism. In the UK we got bombed (a lot) and we lost many, many people. France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, all the occupied countries, suffered their own hell for five or more years.
Yes, the US came to help in 1941, and we are all grateful for that. But you didn't suffer the bombing. You didn't have people taken away and killed in camps. Your contribution to the victory was great. But your experience was not the same. Washington and more major cities weren't bombed. Imagine if they were.
That's why Nazism is so hated.
I was born in 1950, so I didn't see it - I saw the bombsites here though, and I have spoken to people who were in the camps and to those who found them.
When people like David Irvine say it didn't happen, or that it was all exaggerated, I get quite upset.
It's OK to question the detail - it's not OK to deny the fact.
 
tim said:

It's OK to question the detail - it's not OK to deny the fact.
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Ethically speaking you are probably right. I would find anyone denying the existance of the Holocaust to be ethically repulsive (or at the very least, hugely ignorant). However, I think it is important that people are allowed to express ALL views, provided of course that they do not lead to direct harm (E.g. inciting a vigilante group to burn down a house would not be OK, advocating that certain criminals should receive the death penalty would be, even though I find the death penalty, personally, to be utterly indefensible).

It all comes down to the fact that if it's deemed OK to deny some people (even vile ones) their opinion, then it can be deemed OK to deny others, who may well be on your side, their opinion also.
 
Hi, first time poster here...

I'm not aware of any european country actually outlawing the mere questioning of the holocaust.

I think I'll provide a specific example of one of the laws in question, as enforced in Switzerland since 1995.
Here in Switzerland the criminal law (StGB /311.0) contains an anti-discrimination article (art. 261bis) which states:
*translation by SwissSkeptic*
"Trying to publicly degrade or discriminate any person or any group of persons because of race, ethnic or religion in a way depreciating the dignity of man, be it through word, writing, picture, gesture, scuffle or any other means,
or denying, grossly disowning or justifying genocide or any other crimes against humanity for one of these reasons,
[...]
is penalized with prison [i.e. three days up to five years] or a fine."
Link to art. 261bis StGB (german)

So it's only against art. 261bis StGB to deny the holocaust (or any other genocide) if one does it to "publicly degrade or discriminate" a person or a group - keyword being "publicly".

The boundaries of this law are quite clear and there's definatly nothing to find there about simply questioning the holocaust... indeed, scientific questioning of *anything* is protected under art. 16 (Freedom of Opinion and Information) and 20 (Freedom of Science) of the swiss constitution.
 
gnome said:
Could the law be explained by being encompassed in anti-libel laws? To deny the basic facts of the matter is to accuse a hell of a lot of people of not only lying but conspiring to cover up the truth... i.e., to accuse many people of committing a crime.

I also wonder if proving one's claim to be true is a valid defense against the charge.
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In both cases, the answer is really "it depends upon the jurisdiction." For example, in the UK, any statement made in Parliament is absolutely protected from libel/slander laws. In the US (and I believe also in the UK) it's not possible [legally] to libel or slander the dead, so claiming that a hell of a lot of now-dead people were not only lying but conspiring to cover up the truth is, legally, not libel.

Similarly, jurisdictions vary regarding whether or not truth is a defense to libel/slander. In the UK (and other Anglo-American legal systems generally), the truth is an absolute defense against such charges; in Japanese law, however, even uttering a true slander against someone can be a criminal "insult" (Geller won something like $25 from Randi in a Japanese court on this basis).
 
Sigh. The Japanese case : this was based on UNTRUE statements that Randi made. The newspaper that printed Randi's statements settled out of court for substantial damages.

Randi told the newspaper that one of Geller's friends had been driven to shoot himself in the head through his assosiation with Geller. He had actually died of natural causes.

Also it is not quite accurate to say that truth is an absolute defense in UK law. For example, a totally true statement about a certain person may libel a different person with the same name (Newstead vs London Express, 1940)
 
PaulB said:
However, I think it is important that people are allowed to express ALL views, provided of course that they do not lead to direct harm.
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That's the problem.
The holocaust started as nothing more than a few people ranting about jews and telling a slightly different story of history.

The laws against holocuast deniers are preemptive strike against the next Hitler, to catch him before he gets to dangerous.

Preemptive strikes are always questionable and not a good idea, but i guess in this case its reasonable.

Carn
 
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